Harpoon Helps Cupid Splash to benefit Save the Harbor / Save the Bay!

With the Boston winter slowly, but surely (we hope) turning to spring, the 3^rd Annual Harpoon Helps Cupid Splash to benefit Save the Harbor / Save the Bay on March 23 is right around the corner. And while the temperature might be warming, the water remains icy. That makes this event your chance to demonstrate your bravery, while helping your beach.

Registration is easy at www.cupidsplash.org

 “We’re really lucky to have great beaches, and great partners like Harpoon Brewery and JetBlue Airways , who share our commitment to our community and our love for these beaches” said Bruce Berman, Save the Harbor’s Director of Strategy, Communications, and Programs.

The 2012 event raised $30,000 for our beaches, and 2013 is shaping up to be Boston’s best beach bash yet. With Harpoon providing fresh beer and Tasty Burger cooking, well, tasty burgers, there promises to be plenty reasons to eat, drink, and be merry…and then eat, again.

The event is a unique opportunity for Boston-area residents to show their love for life, beer, and their beach, with some help from Harpoon. The Boston-based brewery, which just opened a Beer Hall on Boston’s waterfront, is returning as a sponsor, providing participants with beer and other great prizes.

"We are excited to support our friends at Save the Harbor Save the Bay.  We have been brewing on Boston’s waterfront for more than 25 years, and we believe in their mission,” said Charlie Storey, Senior VP of the Harpoon Brewery, whose philanthropic program, Harpoon Helps, is co-producing this year's Splash in South Boston. "The Cupid Splash is a great way to spend the first Saturday of spring; a quick dip into the icy water to get the blood flowing, followed by a cold Harpoon with your friends - all to support a great cause!"

This year there will be four ways to win a round trip ticket from JetBlue Airways. The person who raises the most money and the person with the best Cupid costume will both win a round-trip ticket on JetBlue Airways to any non-stop destination from Logan Airport.  Additionally, all registered participants who raise $100 or more will be entered into a raffle and any pledger or donor will also have a chance to win a round trip ticket from JetBlue Airways as well as great gifts from Harpoon.

Patriots great Matt Light will be joining us on the beach this year and Kennedy Kelsey, of Mix 104.1’s Karson and Kennedy program will be bringing  the Mix Street Team to liven thing up.

For those who want to attend the party, but do not want to splash, you are still invited. You just have to register before the event and pay the regular registration fee.

About Save the Harbor/Save the Bay

Since 1986, Save the Harbor/Save the Bay has been Massachusetts’ leading voice for clean water and an effective advocate for the restoration of Boston Harbor, the waterfront, our region’s public beaches and the Boston Harbor Islands National Park. Since 2002, our two free Youth Environmental Education programs have connected 73,545 youth and teens to Boston Harbor and Boston Harbor Islands.

Look for Harpoon Helps Cupid Splash updates on Twitter at twitter.com/savetheharbor or follow the hashtag #cupidsplash

I'm Back! Couldn't Wait Til' Summer

Hi everyone, its Will Clark, I'm back at Save the Harbor preparing for another great summer. I had so much fun and learned many new things last year and I'm back hoping this summer will be even better. I miss the Boston Harbor, All Access, Camp Harborview and all the people that I worked with last summer. I had many good times last summer with kids and co-workers. One memory that really stuck to me from last summer was being able to take the kids from the Camp Harborview fishing club on the Boston Harbor to go fishing. They were all so excited to get on the boat and go fishing since they were so used to just fishing off the dock. The kids caught 2 pretty big striped bass and the captain of the boat filleted the bass in front of the kids and they each were able to take a piece home. It was a very exciting day and enjoyed every minute of it. I hope we get to take more kids on the Boston Harbor for fishing trips this summer. The Boston Harbor is an amazing place with many activities to offer and I hope more kids get to experience what it has to offer this summer.

I hope everyone has a great rest of the year and I'm looking forward to Summer 2013 with Save the Harbor. It will be my fifth summer as a member of the staff and I definitely know this summer will be just as good as the ones before if not better. I hope everyone will be back to enjoy the summer on the Boston Harbor with me.

-Will Clark

Last of the Begining

1 hour until I say goodbye or rather I should say see you later to the lovely people I have worked with for my February vacation. However, not for long for this amazing organization will be the beginning of a new family in my life. I want to go far in this organization especially with the great work and awesome programs that happen here. As I do have a great interest in Marine Biology as a future career. Also I love the ocean and the vast wonders and surprises the ocean has in store. Also there is so much to explore and discover about it. I want to aspire to be that person for you never know maybe the cure for cancer could be there in the ocean you never know. I really had at a great time at Save the Harbor Save the Bay and I wish it didn't end so soon.

The most valuable thing I learned while here is that there is so much out there in the world and that there are so many problems out in the world. And everyone goes for the biggest thing that "must" be helped. But oblivious to where they need to start which is at home. I believe this program instills in not only youth that work here but every bring that encounters or works with Save the Harbor Save the Bay. An example of Save the Harbor Save the bay at is http://www.blog.savetheharbor.org/2012/07/young-clams-and-young-bostonians.html here youth and others go to work planting clam seed and getting dirty. Also a specific person who really represents Save the Harbor Save the Bay is a long time friend of mine a girl, by name of Karrisha Gillespie, I attend the Epiphany School with her back in 5th grade. She is an active positive force in the Save the Harbor Save the Bay organization just look for yourself http://www.blog.savetheharbor.org/2012/07/second-time-around.html / http://www.blog.savetheharbor.org/2012/07/ahoy-mate-camp-harbor-view.html

I really couldn't ask for a better welcome into this program and  introduction to life and the great values that need to be looked into. I truly am thankful and grateful to the staff here and also Epiphany in getting me this internship here. Trust and believe there will be more blogs and a lot more Zeke around.

< The great magnificent people I got work with!

< My two favorite places in the office.>

My First Day at Save the Harbor Save the Bay

 

My name is Ezekiel (Zeke) Mercer-McDowall. I am from Dorchester over by Codman Square area. I am 17 and I attend Another Course to College High School in Brighton. I am interning here at Save the Harbor Save the Bay for the week of February vacation. The first day was awesome and being that this was my first internship I could ask for it to be any better. I was able to be comfortable and be myself and show who I was and what I can do. I got to work at STHSTB due to connections with my former middle school The Epiphany School.

So, far I have learned a lot it’s only my second day. I have learned about things such as pollution in water having to do with prescription drugs in the water and how it affects the eco system of the marine life. And there’s much more. Just being able to get an early start on what I want to do in life. A marine biologist and or a forensic scientist, I am really appreciative that I have this opportunity not everyone gets a chance to see the real deal first hand and go behind the scenes to the main foundation where the magic happens. I hope to continue on with this program. I can see that I can and will go far here. And this chance may only come once and I am going to take advantage of it now rather than later.

^The marvelous Patty and I watching the seal in the Harbor.

This was the first seal I have ever seen in The Boston Harbor!>

Treasure Hunt - Part II

In October we found this porcelain head during Save the Harbor's

late season "Treasures of Spectacle Island" cruise.

 

Porcelain doll heads, feet and hands are not uncommon finds at Spectacle Island, which served as the city's dump until the 1950's. However, after a little detective work, we determined that the artifact was actually a carnival cane top. This particular piece was made in Japan for the US market between 1900 and 1930, and was a popular prize at the traveling carnivals and amusement parks across the nation until the late 1950's.

Here's a nice collection. You can see the one we found in the front row.

Here's a close up.  

Here's a typical "cane game" or "ring-toss" from a carnival of that period.  

Here's a collection of carnival canes evaluated by Gary Sohmers of Antiques Roadshow:

You can findthe whole interview from Antiques Roadshow here.

Carnival canes were popular prizes at arcades and amusement parks like those at Nantasket Beach and Revere Beach - which as you can see were popular destinations for the region's residents.

My dad went to law school at Boston University around 1950, and visited has some great memories of visiting Nantasket Beach with his roomate. It is easy to imagine him returning from a day trip with a carnival cane as a souvenir, and just as easy to imagine how that treasured item became trash.

It's always a treat to hunt for treasure on Spectacle Island - or any urban beach. However,  the real treasure hunt begins after I discover something that I want to learn more about. 

Sometimes its involves researching a shell, a stone, a piece of flotsam or jetsam or beach glass or pottery. Sometimes it is simply discovering a story - and sharing a bit of history - with my Dad.

For me, that's a real treasure.

Bruce Berman

From Minnesota to Boston - Via Madrid!

Hello!

My name is Guillermo Erice, I have been the "Artist in Residence" at Save the Harbor / Save the Bay for just about six months now, and it has been a blast. 

Initially, my role here at Save the Harbor was mainly doing some graphic design on external communications sent out to our funders and cpartners. For this, I worked on collages and different informational packs that explained the importance of this organization in its dual roll of improving water quality and reconnecting the population with what have now become some of the cleanest urban beaches of the country. 

You can see some of my recent work here and here.

I've had the pleasure of working alongside the whole Save the Harbor Team and it has been great. A special shout out to our official photographer: Mike Murowchick, who has made my task much easier with incredible photographs. These pictures are, without a doubt, one of the organizations most prized possession because they tell the story, our story.

In these last few weeks, I have been working closely with Bruce Berman, who I first met when I took his class at Boston University, to kick off a new series of activities for the summer involving art on the beach and shore. I am currently back at BU, studying for my Masters and Advertising - which I hope to complete later this year.

I have a past as a street artist, even though I was born in Minnesota, I spent 12 years living in Madrid. It is in Madrid where I started my career as an artist. 

I started painting graffiti in in 2000. Pretty soon I began to toy with the idea of making money painting. In 2006 I finally began to start painting businesses more regularly.  

So with a growing demand for my services, I started my own business in 2009 called SoapTwo -art& design-. It was born as a small business that offered creative graphic art solutions.

My client list grew quite fast, and so did their needs, I quickly had to adapt and began to explore graphic design, which also landed me my first big clients: Inditex and GreenCoast. For these clients I worked with ImagineCube (another startup in Madrid). We collaborated on some projects that ranged from corporate imaging to managing 5 designers in producing a tourist map for Alcalá de Henares - a suburb 20 minutes away from Madrid rich in historic monuments. 

Street art was still the main source of income, I was invited to participate in graffiti festivals in New York, The Hague (Holland), and across Spain. And in early 2011 I was hired by Grupo Las Rosas S.L. to paint the biggest project up until this moment: 3600 square feet painted in 3 months in two mall parking lots, one in Madrid, Spain, the other one in Charleroi, Belgium. 

For this project I teamed up with Gonzalo also known as Taquen, an amazing artist and great friend of mine. We had previously worked together on some other projects, but nothing quite like this. After finishing, it was clear that we needed to actually form a team, SoapTwo was kept for my own personal projects, but ForTheWall was born. Mainly focusing on aerosol art. 

We painted some smaller store fronts after the parking lots and two months before moving to Boston, I was contacted by the Spanish branch of Porter Novelli, a big-time Advertising Agency with offices all over the world! It was an exciting moment!

This time, our task was to design a limited edition bottle for the well established skin care company Nivea. We were also asked to work on the design and implementation of canvases that would be used in the official launch of the limited edition bottle. 

Another great project to work on, a pleasure working with Porter Novelli, Nivea and of course Taquen.

We teamed up with ImagineCube yet again to produce the making of video for the Nivea event:


Here are some samples of the work done over the past few years: 

Some projects were "abstracts" or as this particular client put it "Something bright and colorful that has no meaning at all" 

This car was painted in collaboration with one of the participants of Rally Mauritania. He would then drive the car to the South Africa where it would be auctioned off and the money donated to local schools. 

These pictures are of the mall parking lots

Young Tiago is a Cars fanatic, we transformed his room 

This piece was painted one of my last days in Madrid with my best friends and girlfriend -I have to admit, I have an obsession with letters, fonts and colors!

I hope you enjoy looking at my work as much as I enjoy doing it.
If you want to see more, just visit my facebook page   "For The Wall"

All the best
G-

Nemo Tosses Tons of Clams on Boston Area Beaches

When "Nemo the Nor'easter" blew through the region last week, it left residents of the region's coastal communities to cope with the the impacts of pounding surf, coastal flooding, 50 mph winds and up to 40 inches of snow.

The worst blizzard to hit new England in decades also left an unexpected bounty on the region's public beaches - tons and tons of clams.

According to Revere resident Kathleen Heifer, who sent us these images,  Revere beach was "literally littered" with quohogs, littlenecks and cherrystones, as well as seed clams, scallops, crabs and juvenile lobsters. There were so many clams on the beach that the seagulls ate their fill and then just sat on the beach, seeming "to full to fly". (We will post a link to her video here as soon as we can.)

According to Save the Harbor / Save the Bay's BayWatcher Bruce Berman,  Nemo's strong winds pounded the region's beaches from Nahant to Nanatsket with waves to 30 feet. The surf tossed clams on the beach hundreds of feet above the typical high tide line, where frigid temperatures quickly froze them solid, killing tens of thousands of the tasty creatures.

"It is an unexpected bounty for the seagulls" said Berman. "But it may be bad news for diggers and shellfish lovers, who could find clams harder to come by this year."

 With snow emergenices, school closures and parking bans still in effect in many communities, there are two bright spots. First, it should be a great year for treasure hunters. The same conditions that tossed the clams on the beach have also deposited a fresh crop of flotsam, jetsam, beach glass and other historic artifacts for beach goers to discover. Second, Berman predicts that Nemo will have no impact on this year's Harpoon Helps Cupid Splash pledge fundraiser to support free beach events and programs this summer, .scheduled for Saturday, March 23 2013.

Hopefully things will have settled down by then!