Ashburnham

ASHBURNHAM — The Ramble music festival returns to town this weekend, a free event that raises money through donations from attendees and other generous donors and sponsors to benefit the New England Center and Home for Veterans in Boston.

Begun in 2010 by Boston-based folk-rock band Adam Ezra Group as a means of raising funds to prevent veteran homelessness in the Northeast, The Ramble will return for its 14th consecutive year on Aug. 26. Previously held at Salisbury Beach, The Ramble pivoted to a virtual event in 2020 due to the pandemic. Since then, the music festival for a cause has been held as a hybrid event at a site dubbed ‘The Mountain’ on Gibson Road, which was built out into festival grounds overlooking the Wachusett Valley.

The one-day event will feature live performances by the Adam Ezra Group and other independent bands, including the Pat McGee Band, the Chad Hollister Band, SIRSY, GoldenOak, Kali Stoddard-Imari, Shanna In A Dress, Danielia Cotton, Steve Hartmann, Poche Ponce and Tall Travis, who are all donating their services to the event. The festival will be livestreamed and include remote virtual appearances by other musical artists.

Since 2013, all proceeds from The Ramble, over $360,000, has benefited the New England Center and Home for Veterans (NECHV), a multidimensional service and care provider that assists veterans who are facing challenges with a broad array of programs and services that enable success, meaningful employment, and dignified, independent living.

Ezra has lived in Chelsea for the last decade and called Somerville home for ten years before that. He and his wife just bought a house near Rockland, Maine, where they now live most of the time with their toddler, Willa. His band recently wrapped up a multi-state tour and are looking forward to taking the stage at The Ramble.

“We’ve personally invited every amazing artist out ourselves and everyone, musicians and our entire Ramble Volunteer Army alike, are donating their time and talent,” Ezra said. “Great music, food, and activities throughout the entire day, but even better than all that is this pervading sense of community like nothing else you’ll ever experience.”

When COVID turned the world upside down in 2020, the festival was transitioned to a 24-hour livestream from a private home in Ashburnham and Ezra said they invited “just a handful of people to join us.”

“Through these efforts, we fell in love with our current location in Ashburnham, which we fondly refer to as ‘The Mountain,’” he shared. “This year we’ve excavated and built whole new festival grounds literally on the side of a mountain overlooking Wachusett Valley. I think it may be one of the most beautiful concert locations I have ever seen!”

The festival has been a labor of love for the musician, who is dedicated to helping homeless veterans through it.

“We believe in this organization,” Ezra said about the NECHV. “They do incredible things for veterans throughout the Northeast helping them into safe and dignified housing as well as providing a support network that has the ability to help in so many other areas as well. The first three years of The Ramble we chose different causes each year, but when we began rallying around our vets, this amazing community of ours became inspired on a different kind of level. Last summer there were roughly 1,000 homeless veterans throughout the Northeast, and through NECHV we helped house 100. It is incredible how tangible the impact is.”

President and CEO of the New England Center and Home for Veterans Andrew McCawley said they are “profoundly grateful to Adam Ezra and The Ramble for their extraordinary support over the past ten years.”

“The money they raise helps us continue our mission to equip veterans who are facing challenges following their military service with the tools for economic self-sufficiency, through a broad array of programs and services that enable success, reintegration, meaningful employment and independent living,” McCawley said.

Ezra said that for anyone reading this, “come take a chance on us.”

“If times are hard for you, come for free,” he said. “There has never been a better time to be a part of this journey. We are changing lives throughout New England these days, and just by showing up you can make us better and stronger. If you can’t be there in person, livestream and share what we’re doing with folks you care about.”

When asked how the vibe is at the family friendly music festival, Ezra said “Welcoming. Inclusive. Fun. Comfortable” – and that it means a lot to have people come out to support their fundraising efforts year after year.

“It is truly the honor of my life to be a part of this community,” he said. “I am continuously in awe of how inspiring it is to be along for this ride. We are inspired by our fan community every day.  We also have this core belief that small, grassroots community has the power to shape the world we live in and the culture we belong to. We engage in community activism throughout the year, but The Ramble is our ongoing experiment to see just how powerful this community can be when we all come together.”

For more information, including a virtual auction and the livestream, visit getrambled.com.

ASHBURNHAM – It’s not every day a Grammy nominee comes to town.

Judy Pancoast will be gracing the stage at New Dawn Arts Center at 84 Main St. on Aug. 13 at 3 p.m. for a family friendly concert for children that’s sure to please all ages. The talented performer was nominated for Best Children’s Album in 2011 for “Weird Things Are Everywhere: A Reading Road Trip with Judy Pancoast” but the Grammy ended up going to American folk icon Pete Seger, not bad company to be in.

According to a press release Pancoast has long toured around the country with her children’s concerts and has also performed in several cabaret club venues, including her tribute show to the Carpenters, whom she met as a teenager. She writes her own songs, covers other songs, and is probably best-known for her original Christmas tune, “The House on Christmas Street,” which can be heard at residential synchronized light displays and on radio stations around the country. The official video has over 250,000 views on YouTube.

Pancoast later expanded the song into a novel and has performed community concerts at Christmas lights displays. In 2021, she co-wrote and released another Christmas song, “Christmastime in Maine,” a duet with fellow Maine native Kevin Scott Hall, which was featured in a Portland Press Herald piece last year.

She grew up in Waterville, Maine and earned a BA in Music from the University of Maine and then a master’s in education from the University of New Hampshire. She and her husband Philip raised their two daughters in New Hampshire, where they lived for 25 years before moving to Connecticut with their three rescue pets in 2020 to be closer to their girls, who both work in Brooklyn and work in the entertainment industry in New York City.

In addition to her musical talents Pancoast is also an accomplished writer. She recently completed a play for middle-schoolers, “Girl on the Moon,” which has been performed and is available for licensing. She has also published several short stories in various journals and is a member of The Recording Academy, formally the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences abbreviated NARAS, The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and the Horror Writers Association.

She said that although she didn’t win the Grammy all those years ago “the nomination was the greatest professional thing to happen to me.”

“It truly validated my career choice, which meant so much to me because I was 51 years old when I got the nomination and I’d been working as a professional musician since the age of sixteen,” Pancoast said. “I enjoy making people happy, especially children. There is nothing like the look of unbridled joy on a child’s face when they are having fun. They keep me young, make me laugh, and fill me with happiness. I feel like I have the best job in the world.”

Like so many other artists and musicians, she was not able to perform during the pandemic.

“I got very sad. I felt like I was losing who I really was inside,” she shared. “Since I’ve been able to get back out there and perform it’s like a whole new lease on life! I really love playing and singing for kids, and I think they know that and respond to it.”

New Dawn Arts Center Founder and Executive Director Abigail Abbott said she was “thrilled” to book Pancoast, “who has such a rich background in performance for all ages.” Abbott went on to say that they have a lot of great events coming up and that she is “really striving to bring quality programming to our new art center and having a Grammy-nominee, like Judy, is helping us get on the map.”

Pancoast said she is happy to be taking the stage at New Dawn. When asked what she is most looking forward to about the gig she was quick to say, “meeting new friends and sharing my songs with them.”

“My audience is constantly growing up, so it’s important for me to be able to sing to the young ones,” she said. Also, I’ve never performed in Ashburnham before, so this is a whole new territory for me.”

She said she hopes lots of families come to her show because she can “guarantee that they will have a wonderful time that will be part of their family memories forever.”

“I say that because I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I hear from many of my fans who are all grown up and tell me how special my music and my shows were to them when they were children. Now they bring their own kids to my shows.

Tickets to her show are $12 and include ice cream. For more information on Pancoast visit judypancoast.com and follow Judy Pancoast on Facebook and Instagram.