BELFAST, Maine — Elaine Bielenberg always loved watching telethons that featured people like famous comedian Jerry Lewis. Now she’s organizing one in Belfast that should provide hours of televised local entertainment for a cause that’s close to her heart.
“A telethon is something I’ve always wanted to do, and I don’t know why,” the Belfast Creative Coalition board member said Thursday. “Early telethons were all about local talent. That changed over the years.”
However, the INSPIRE-A-THON, set for the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 28, at Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast, should bring back some of the old-time vibe, she said. The fundraiser and membership drive for the Belfast Creative Coalition, a nonprofit created in 2012 to cultivate arts and culture and to attract people and business to the area, will feature dozens of performances over the course of four hours.
The event will be televised on Belfast Community Television, but organizers are hoping to attract a good-sized, live and “very enthusiastic” audience, Bielenberg said.
“This is homegrown,” she said. “It’s our first go at this, but we’ve gotten great response so far.”
Those who tune in for or attend the event can expect to see and hear scenes from plays, hula hooping, poets reading dramatically, swing dancing, singing and all kinds of musicians performing. There even will be teens performing an “Othello” rap, adult burlesque dancers, a fencing demonstration and a mime.
Interspersed among the live performances will be showings of previously filmed video pieces of artists and farmers at work. At the same time as the telethon, in another part of the middle school, there will be a preview party for the Belfast Creative Coalition’s upcoming Cultivate, a farm and arts trail tour to be held Oct. 11 and 12.
“It’s to promote our local talent, to get people excited about the Belfast Creative Coalition and to tell people what our mission is to the community,” Bielenberg said.
The city’s creative sector is an important part of the economy, according to Thomas Kittredge, Belfast’s economic development director.
“There is somewhat of a multiplier effect, which helps make businesses more sustainable and have them grow,” he said.
Kittredge and others will be manning the telephones, hoping to take pledges and gain new members for the coalition. The event will run from 12:30-4:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28. For more information, call 323-8692.