By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Back when Emily Keegan and Anne McLaughlin were in high school, they’d head down to the Black Swamp Art Festival after marching at the Bobcats football game. Keegan remembers it always seemed to be raining on those nights. That didn’t dim their enthusiasm.
Now, the 2003 BG High graduates have teamed up to chair the volunteer effort for the festival, which will be held Sept. 10, 11 , and 12 in downtown Bowling Green.
Friends since fourth grade, they’ve been involved in a lot together, and both share a passion for helping their communities.
McLaughlin, who now lives in Los Angeles, worked with Helping Hands, during the pandemic. Keegan is on the boards of the Wood County Humane Society, the Black Swamp Players, and Northwest Ohio Community Shares as well as the BG Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.
“She’s that woman,” McLaughlin said of her friend.
“I’m from Bowling Green, and it’s important to me that non-profit organizations continue to thrive,” Keegan said.
She and McLaughlin share a spirit of wanting to be active and involved. “We put a lot of that energy into things that are more community based,” Keegan said. “I don’t plan on leaving Bowling Green, so I want to make it a place I want to live.”
McLaughlin learned from her mother, Deb Weiser, a longtime festival volunteer, that the festival committee was looking for a volunteer coordinator.
McLaughlin, who was visiting BG, mentioned it to Keegan.
“I was thinking she’d just raise her hand,” she said. Instead Keegan responded: “I’ll do it if you do it with me.”
McLaughlin knew from her working with Helping Hands, which is based in San Francisco Bay area, that it is possible to do volunteer work from a distance. “I knew how I could contribute remotely after having that experience.”
For most of the year, the festival committee was meeting remotely, and the past couple months when it returned to in-person meetings, McLaughlin participated via Facetime.
Much of the work now is contacting groups, clubs and organizations to recruit them to participate. She’ll be back for the festival.
The festival has 826 spots to fill according to its signup.com page. Already almost 200 have signed up, “which is amazing,” McLaughlin said.
Youth art and serving and monitoring in the beer garden require the largest number of volunteers.
Help with trash pickup is also needed. That’s a good for clubs and teams needing community service projects. It’s a major contribution to the festival, McLaughlin said, and “it’s good way to get service hours in with your buds.”
For the first time ever, the juried art show will be open on Friday evening. Much of the set up that was done in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday will now occur on Friday. That does mean the festival will need a few more people in artist hospitality on Friday “to make sure our visiting and local artists are taken care of,” McLaughlin said. Those volunteers deliver water to artists and give them breaks.”
Some volunteers will be needed early Saturday for the “dawn patrol” to assist with the set up for the Wood County Invitational Show.
Keegan volunteered once with the festival, working with Wynn Perry, who was the previous volunteer coordinator. In other years, she worked at the Humane Society’s booth selling Pisanello’s pizza.
“I think people should volunteer because, for one, it’s fun,” she said. “When you volunteer you get to be right in the middle of it all. … For three hours you are enjoying the festival but also participating in it, which is fun in a different way. I think emerging from this quarantined life, I hope people see this as a way to reconnect.”
McLaughlin said she had “faith that the community will raise their hands, roll up their sleeves and everything will come together.”
Volunteers have invested their time in the festival for 28 years now, sustaining and nurturing the event. Some volunteers, including people on the committee have been involved almost since its inception.
The festival, McLaughlin said, is looking to recruit new groups. She and Keegan have reached out to BGO Pride and BRAVE (Black Rights Activism Visibility Equity).
“The future of the festival needs to be carried on by people who didn’t start it,” she said,”but are endeared to it for what it is – a celebration of the arts and a good excuse to have a few beers and listen to live music with your friends.”
“I want to encourage people, even if they don’t want to volunteer, to just participate,” Keegan said. “I want it to be celebratory. Hopefully, people will be ready and comfy to experience this again, support the arts in our town. If they volunteer for us even better, but I just really hope they go.”
