NOTE NEW VENUE!

Plan on Spending Saturday, August 1 with us in Peterborough for the Annual Granny D Walk and 2026 Democracy Festival!  The walk will begin at 9 am near Granny D's former home on Cobb Meadow Rd in Dublin and will cover approximately 6.2 miles to Depot Park in Peterborough for an afternoon of celebrating democracy with music, speakers, entertainment for the kids, food and CAKE!  (Please CLICK HERE for info on the walk)

Speakers:

Our featured speaker will be John Bonifaz, a political activist specializing in constitutional law and voting rights. He is the president and co-founder of Free Speech for People,  the founder of the National Voting Rights Institute and a former candidate for Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, as well as an accomplished author.

Charlie Savage is a recent ConVal high school graduate and a student at Saint Anselm College with a major in politics on a pre law trajectory. Charlie recently hosted a very successful voter registration drive at his high school with Open Democracy and hopes to be able to continue to expand voter access in the future. 

Ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1979, Mark Beckwith served parishes in Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts.  Elected Bishop of Newark (NJ), he served in that capacity for twelve years until his retirement in 2018.  He has been co-chair of Braver Faith, a department of Braver Angels, a national movement that seeks to depolarize America.  He is the author of Seeing the Unseen:  Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms and Party Lines (Morehouse Publishing, 2022).  He posts weekly on his website, markbeckwith.net.  He hosts a podcast, Reconciliation Roundtable, which involves conversations with religious leaders.  He offers spiritual direction and coaching for clergy.  A graduate of Amherst College and Yale Divinity School, he lives in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

His passion is to invite people to look beyond and beneath their political and theological positions, which in today’s climate of polarization can be overly confining; and find hope and blessing – and a way forward.

Entertainment:

We'll have music by FolkSoul Duo: Leslie Vogel and Fred Simmons live in Greenfield, New Hampshire.  With their home umbrella organization, Folksoul Music, which includes their Folksoul Duo, the band Tattoo and the Folksoul Band, they have been bringing American Roots music of all styles to the communities of the Monadnock Region and beyond for the past three decades.  During Doris “Granny D” Haddock’s run for US Senate in New Hampshire Fred and Leslie and a couple of other friend musicians decided to become Granny D’s personal marching band as she walked into the many towns of this state to give her memorable campaign speeches in the village squares.

Eve Pierce is a passionate and charismatic singer-songwriter who currently splits her time between writing and performing her original songs, performing the lead vocals for the Celtic Rock band Waking Finnegan, and creating Folk Cabarets with her friend and fellow musician Gordon Peery.  Her debut album "Save the Bell Tower"  was released in 2021 and is available for purchase and download. She is currently working on her next solo album and Waking Finnegan’s first album.  You can learn more about her at evepierce.com.

Artist Sophia Asbury will join us to do caricature art!  Have your caricature done in a variety of sizes.  They make great gifts! Check out all of Sophia's art HERE.

We'll provide the main portion of the potluck, a selection of treats from La Piñata Mexican Grill in Jaffrey, as well as water and free ice cream donated by Ben & Jerry's!  If you would like to bring something for the shared meal, email [email protected] and let her know what you are bringing.

We need volunteers!  Please fill out THIS FORM if you are willing to serve as a shuttle driver, a crossing guard, a setup or clean up person, serving lunch or ice cream or any of the other myriad of volunteer opportunities we will have!  

The site is accessible, please email if you need special assistance/arrangements.  Please park at the Riverwalk parking lot.  48 Grove St.  It is a very short distance over the Riverwalk Bridge to Depot Park.

Note that the Grove St. Bridge over the Nubanusit is closed and you will need to get to the Riverwalk parking lot a different way.  Here are directions:

At the lights for the junction of 101 and 202. Take a right if you are driving west on 101 (left if driving east) onto GROVE street. Drive a short distance to MILLER Way on the right and it takes you right into Riverwalk parking lot. It’s before the closed off bridge and there is a P sign on the left pointing you into the parking lot.  Walking bridge from the Parking Lot takes you into Depot Square. It is 48 Grove Street. 

Donations are gratefully accepted to help pay for the festival.  You can make a tax deductible donation HERE.

Special thanks to our wonderful cosponsors for their financial, planning organizational support:  League of Women Voters/NH, NH Council of Churches, NH Peace Action,