Dr. Marquis Victor walked to the front of the room before a single data slide hit the screen. That was the choice. That was the message. Last Thursday, June 11, roughly 500 people gathered at Endicott College for ECCF‘s State of Essex County 2026 — nonprofit leaders, elected officials, donors, and business owners. Before anyone read a statistic, Marquis —

Step into a former bank vault in downtown Lynn, and instead of safe-deposit boxes you’ll find a 150-seat black-box theatre buzzing before showtime. That’s the home of Stand Up Stick Up, Lynn’s monthly comedy show at The Neal Rantoul Vault Theatre. The next edition lands this Thursday, June 25, with doors at 7:30 p.m. and the show at 8:00 p.m.

We grabbed our cameras and headed to the Point this June — and watched Eternal October Salem take a big step. The city’s only Black-owned alternative brand cut the ribbon on its new storefront inside North Shore CDC’s retail pop-up incubator at 104 Lafayette Street. A pink ribbon, oversized scissors, neighbors packed into the mural-covered courtyard, pizza and cold drinks

There are days when you can feel a whole city show up for each other — and Juneteenth Jam 2026 in Salem was one of them. On Friday, June 19, Charlotte Forten Park filled up with music, crafts, a Black-owned pop-up market, and a community honoring freedom together. We grabbed our cameras and spent the day soaking it in, and

Salem RenFaire makes its debut Saturday, June 13, 2026, at Notch Brewing, 283R Derby Street — and the organizers proudly call it the tiniest Renaissance faire you’ve ever been to. Entry is $10 ($5 for kids), and all ages are welcome. The medieval marketplace, tap room, and biergarten open at 11 am. At noon, an interactive quest from Salem’s own

The first-ever Beverly Fringe Festival runs June 5–20, 2026, filling downtown Beverly with two weeks of bold theater, improv, comedy, and brand-new work. The anchor programming happens June 11–19 at The Bower, the new 36,000-square-foot creative complex at 248 Cabot Street in Beverly’s Cultural District. Montserrat College of Art organized the festival in partnership with Beverly Main Streets, The Cabot,

Why simply Showing Up Is The Best Thing We Can Do The average American now spends 35 minutes a day socializing in person. Not 35 minutes with friends, specifically — 35 minutes with another human being, in a shared room, breathing the same air. That number is down from 38 minutes in 2019, and it never recovered after the pandemic

A converted school auditorium in downtown Salem held an unlikely cross-section of the affordable housing world this morning. A priest from the Archdiocese of Boston. A state senator. The director of the Punto Urban Art Museum. Affordable housing financiers. City planners. And Sarah Ashodian, the building’s first artist-resident. The occasion was the ribbon-cutting for Hawthorne Lofts, 29 units of affordable

Arts and culture aren’t separate from tourism. Tourism isn’t separate from arts and culture. They are integrated, and in Massachusetts communities like Beverly, that integration is driving real economic growth – more visitors, more spending, more jobs, and a stronger local identity. I’ve been saying this for years. A few weeks ago, I got to make that case on stage

On Saturday, April 18, eighty people showed up to Spinelli’s Function Hall in Peabody — dressed sharp, hearts open — for the North Shore Juneteenth Association’s annual Hats, Heels, Bow Ties, & Blazers Tea. And what unfolded over that afternoon was exactly what happens when an organization puts as much intention into building community as it does into celebrating it.