Festival Offers Learning Project for Families #Vontrapped at Home

The Glimmerglass Festival is offering free birdhouse building kits to local families as a fun, at-home project.

Using leftover lumber donated from the theater company’s scene shop, Glimmerglass Festival carpenter and A/V Coordinator Joel Morain has been working diligently with other crew members to assemble these kits for the community. 

In addition to his work for the Festival, Morain served as technical director for 13 years (Go Raiders) at Colgate University, where he taught Intro to Stagecraft and advanced stagecraft classes. To learn the basic functions of the scene shop tools, his students measured, cut and assembled more than 650 similar birdhouses during his tenure. 

“Normally at this point in the season, we are busily building scenery,” Morain said. “It’s hard to transition from full-speed-ahead to a complete stop while we practice social distancing.  While the shop is temporarily shut down, we all wanted a project to keep us busy. Building these kits is something we can do at our homes, and is something we can offer to local kids (and parents) who could really use a non-screen-time activity. Once the birdhouses are built, they can be decorated.  I’m really looking forward to seeing what the community’s completed projects look like!”

The Glimmerglass Festival provided all the materials required to complete these kits. All you’ll need is a phillips screwdriver and time — and we all know we have time right now. 

Families are assembling their birdhouses, decorating them, and posting them in their yards for everyone to enjoy — both feathered friends and neighbors. 

More than 100 free birdhouse kits have been distributed where school lunches for Cherry Valley-Springfield school system are also picked up.

Post a photo of your decorated birdhouses to social media and tag @glimmerglassfestival with #vontrappedathome and #glimmerglassfestival.