Past, Present & Future

The Catskill Mountain Foundation was formed in February 1998. The first 10 months were spent in planning and arranging financing.

In December 1998 the Foundation opened its bookstore and gallery. The bookstore started with under 1,000 titles with a heavy emphasis on art and culture. It now offers over 5,000 titles covering a wide scope of interest areas, but still has a heavy focus on art and culture. We have added a large selection of publisher's overstocks, which are usually discounted 50% off list price. We also offer recent bestseller library extras, which are 70% off list price.

In the spring 1999 the Foundation brought Mary Oliver, a nationally known, award winning poet, to its facilities for a reading and book signing. It has also arranged numerous other book signings during the course of the year.

During 1999 the Foundation's gallery, which is incorporated into its bookstore, hosted 10 exhibits, including crafts, photographs, paintings, drawings, and water colors by regional and national artists of note.

The Foundation also acquired the Hunter Theater in December 1998. Since taking over the theater, the film program has been diversified. In addition to offering the best of Hollywood, the theater has also played many award winning foreign and independent films. The Foundation Theater often offers both a blockbuster Hollywood film and an award winning foreign or independent film on a rotating schedule during the week.

The Foundation opened its organic green market in early summer 1999 as a first step in establishing its community farm. It also organized a small farm festival over the 4th of July weekend as part of this initiative.

Jointly with the Greene Room Players, the Foundation sponsored a series of 8 free concerts in the Village of Hunter during July and August.

In the fall 1999, the Foundation hosted a series of six extraordinary classical music concerts, jointly sponsored in part by the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College and Chase Bank. These performances included the nationally known Manhattan String Quartet and the world renowned Anonymous 4.

Over the course of the year, as we have opened new operations and expanded our programs. We have built a dedicated staff now approaching 20 full time and part time local residents.

The activities of the Foundation have been widely covered by the local and regional media. Over 50 media stories have appeared, including a feature story in Hudson Valley Magazine, and stories in the Albany Times Union, The Woodstock Times, the Mountain Eagle, the Windham Journal and many others.

Plans for the Future

Our goal is to develop a significant cultural center in the northern Catskill Mountains and to create a community farm that demonstrates the feasibility of running a year-round organic farm using renewable energy sources despite the fact that we are located in a cold mountain region with rocky clay soil. Across these two primary areas of focus we are presently engaged and will be implementing a number of additional educational activities for children in local and regional schools.

Since the Foundation was created in 1998, it has quickly become one of the most active cultural organizations in the Catskill Region. It operates a multi-theater film and performing arts center, a bookstore and art gallery. We publish the Catskill Mountain Region guide, which is a four color monthly magazine that focuses heavily on the arts in the region.

The Foundation's arts programming focuses on:

• Performances of classical, folk and pop music, dance and theatre.
• Exhibitions of fine art and crafts featuring works by artists with ties to the region plus works by artists from outside the region.
• An arts oriented bookstore with one of the largest offerings of books related to the Catskill area and mountain regions around the world; with poetry readings by nationally recognized poets, author book signings and storytelling.
• Two movie theatres featuring the Best of Hollywood on screen one, and foreign and independent films on screen two; a Film Club featuring award winning foreign films from the past.
• Mountain Culture Festival celebrating life in the mountains with music, a Mountainfilm festival, crafts, book fair, art exhibits, animal exhibits, food, the Great Catskill Mountain Quilt Show, mountain sports events, and other special events.
• Free Community Programs celebrating holidays and other special times of the year with films, hay rides, games for children and families and other fun events.

The main focus of the Foundation's sustainable living initiatives is the development of its organic farm and Farm Market. Our farm is a real working farm, but is also an experimental and educational facility.

The farm focuses on:

• Using farming methods that protect our environment by growing high quality crops without the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers.
• Working with the local schools on teaching students where our food comes from.
• Experimenting with season extending technology to demonstrate the viability of growing crops on a 12 month basis, even in our short mountain growing season.
• Demonstrating the viability of sustainable technologies with the use of renewable energy sources for greenhouse heating and farm electricity.
• Increasing awareness of and appreciation for heirloom crop varieties.
• Helping members of the community reconnect with the land by operating a local farm that is continuously open to tours, that grows food in our community, for our community, and that delivers the freshest produce possible from our fields, cold frames and greenhouses right to our Farm Market.