While Marylanders are still becoming familiar with their communities’ Main Street program throughout the state, on the Mid-Shore, that’s not an issue.  Over the last twenty years, our largest towns, including Cambridge, Chestertown, Denton, Easton, and Centreville, have all participated in the state’s Main Street program, and each one can point to tangible success stories as a result.

Maryland’s Main Street program is helping small towns across the state rediscover the power of their historic downtowns. Rooted in a national model from Main Street America, the initiative supports communities that want to revitalize their commercial cores while preserving local character, focusing on four key areas—design, promotion, economic vitality, and organization—to create a framework that’s as much about people as it is about place.

Starting next week, Main Street Maryland will take the stage in downtown Easton at the Avalon Theatre for a series of workshops, presentations, and to highlight our regional success for representatives from New Cumberland to Ocean City, and the Spy was curious to talk with Christine McPherson, who leads the Main Street effort in Maryland, to understand better how some of the State’s small towns are making real progress.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about Main Street Maryland, please go here.

A few years ago, the Spy ran a good news story that the Mid-Shore philanthropist Arthur Houghton’s famed Wye Institute, just off of Wye Island in Queen Anne’s County, had to donate to Hole in the Wall Gang.  This remarkable campus had served as a leadership camp, a think tank, and the eventual home of the Aspen Institute for decades until the organization made a strategic decision to close its operations at the site.  The idea that the non-profit would use the approximately 500 acres to host extremely ill children and their families was welcomed news for the entire region.

But who was the Hole in the Wall Gang? The Spy wanted to know, so we spent some quality time with Arthur Houghton’s stepson, Jeff Horstman, and a few members of the Hole in the Wall Gang’s senior management team to discuss the organization’s mission in a 2023 interview.

Two years later, the Spy returned to Wye for an update with Jeff and Vermont-based HITWG board member Bonnie Ferro, who also co-directs the Charles P. Ferro Foundation, about her family’s decision to make a $1 million lead donation to construct its welcome center and infirmary as part of the organization’s $15 million phase one project.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. To make a donation to the Hole in the Wall Gang or to learn more about its programs, please go here.