May 29, 2026 | Community
Tell us about The MOVIEMENT and what inspired you to create the film. The MOVIEMENT is a climate action engine – a narrative feature film and empowerment platform to bring people-powered climate action to the big screen. It began with a simple realization: people care deeply about our climate crisis, but many feel overwhelmed or unsure what to do about it. So we’re creating a vehicle to reach people through the emotional power of storytelling, which can move people in ways facts and headlines don’t. The MOVIEMENT is designed to inspire audiences and, as the end credits roll, give them a smooth path to simple, high-impact actions on climate and democracy. It’s not just a movie – it’s a movement.
How do you hope The MOVIEMENT will impact the community? We’re planning to film the movie in Marblehead which will bring economic benefits and some excitement to our community. After co-founding Sustainable Marblehead to preserve our past by protecting our future, my hope is that The MOVIEMENT will help put Marblehead on the national map as an exemplary sustainable community. And more broadly, I hope The MOVIEMENT will help people feel empowered that their actions to drive systemic change matter – that they can make a positive difference.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned while creating this film? The biggest lesson I’ve learned in creating The MOVIEMENT is that building a powerful action engine takes persistence, resilience, and faith in your vision. My wife, Kelley and I wrote the screenplay for the movie, and we’ve had many learning moments along the way. I’ve also learned that people genuinely want to help when they’re invited into something hopeful and empowering. When you combine purpose with collaboration, doors open, partners emerge, and momentum builds in ways you didn’t predict at the start.
What do you love most about Marblehead? What I love most about Marblehead is it’s truly unlike anywhere else in the world – a town of extraordinary beauty, revolutionary history, and vibrant community spirit. There’s something profoundly grounding about living next to the ocean in a place where people know how lucky they are to be here. A favorite Marblehead summer outing for Kelley and me is taking our tandem kayak out for an adventure.
What is something people would be surprised to learn about you? Most people don’t know that I built and ran a 16-track recording studio during my twenties. In addition to writing and recording my own music, I produced numerous bands and artists, and co-produced a compilation album of Massachusetts bands, Big Fish in a Little Sea, with artwork by Mirage Studios – creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Still a producer, I wrote the theme song for The MOVIEMENT, which we’ll record later this year.
More Information:
Healthy Home Healthy Planet / The MOVIEMENT
John Livermore, President & Founder
[email protected]
(617) 575-9536,
TheMOVIEMENT.org
May 20, 2026 | Arts, Marketing, Shopping
Patti, tell us about O’Hare Williams. For many years, I’ve enjoyed working with businesses and organizations. As a graphic designer, I work to create attention to the client’s messaging and their product with design, photography and illustration along with their social media posts and content. My focus is sharing my artwork with Discover Marblehead members, area residents and Marblehead visitors. I’m a fine artist who has spent most of my life in Marblehead. I find inspiration in the natural beauty and endless changes of the ocean that surrounds us here. I work to capture those nostalgic moments and places that hold a meaning for people. I paint landscapes, pet portraits and commission work in watercolors and acrylics. There is a selection of my work displayed at my studio here in Marblehead and at the North Shore Art Association in Gloucester. A commissioned mural is also at Caffe Italia on Bessom Street.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in running a business? The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to listen and focus on what a person is looking for. The artistic nature has a tendency to take things further than the intent and the client is then disappointed. I’ve learned to hone in to create art that fits the desire of the client and is satisfying to produce.
What do you love most about Marblehead? Marblehead has a way of being very charming. The working waterfront, the ever-changing tides, the quiet inlets along the water and the colonial homes all beckon to a story we can conjure to another time. This is what I love about living here in Marblehead.
What is something people would be surprised to learn about you? Most surprising to people is that I was a courtroom artist for a murder trial held in the Middlesex County Courthouse in Cambridge. Three convicted men from Keene, NH committed a brutal murder in Tewksbury. This assignment included the probable cause hearing to sentencing for the Keene Sentinel and transmitted thru UPI wire service. The three men each received life sentences.
More Information:
O’Hare Williams
Patti O’Hare Williams
47 Ocean Ave, Marblehead
781-631-5960
OHareWilliams.com
May 11, 2026 | Historic, Tours, Travel
Andy, tell us about By Lantern Tours and how you help/serve your clients. By Lantern Tours offers story-driven walking tours of historic Old Town Marblehead. My wife, Marybeth, and I co-founded the business around a simple belief: Marblehead has one of the most extraordinary stories in American history, and most people have never heard it. We offer three tours: the REV250 Tour, Legends & Lore, and Ghosts & Consequences. Groups stay small by design, because the stories deserve that kind of attention. Whether you’re a first time visitor or a Marblehead local, you’ll hear things that will surprise you.
What inspired you to start your business? We live in the middle of all of this history, and once you start paying attention to it, it’s hard to stop. We’ve sat in the kitchens of colonial homes and heard the real stories of the families who built them. We’ve explored attics and basements, opened secret doors, and found trap doors leading to wells. We know which houses used to be taverns and bakeries. We’ve seen them, heard the stories, and fact-checked them to make sure they’re true. At some point we started sharing these stories with friends and family, and people leaned in. They wanted more. So we told more. That’s genuinely how this started.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in running a business? That passion is the product. Marybeth and I spent our careers in advertising and marketing, and what that taught us, more than anything, is how to tell stories. When you share something with genuine passion, people feel it. That’s true whether you’re selling a national brand or walking a group of strangers through a 300-year-old street. The other thing we’ve learned is that in a small town, everything is personal. Every booking matters. Every guest who leaves happy tells three people. Every five-star review is a salesperson working for you around the clock. Marblehead has been generous to us, and we carry that with us every single tour.
What do you love most about Marblehead? That it’s real. There’s no reproduction here, no theme park version of history. The buildings are original. The streets are original. The harbor looks the way it looked when Marblehead’s men launched from it. When you walk a guest down a narrow street in Old Town and tell them the story of who lived in that house — and the house is still standing right in front of them — you can see it land. That moment of genuine connection with history doesn’t happen anywhere else quite the way it happens here. And the people. Marblehead has a character that’s entirely its own. Stubborn, proud, fiercely independent. Exactly the kind of town that would row Washington across the Delaware in a snowstorm and not make a big deal about it.
What is something people would be surprised to learn about you? That for most of our adult lives, Marybeth and I were consumed by the thing most parents are consumed by: raising our three kids. That was the priority, the focus, the full-time project. Everything else came second. At some point the kids grew up. And in that space, something unexpected happened. We started paying attention to the town we had been living in — really paying attention. The history, the stories, the houses, the harbor. We started digging. One story led to another, and we couldn’t stop. Starting a walking tour business was never the plan. The kids may be grown, but we’re still very much in their lives – and they in ours. Marybeth’s mom lives with us too. But between all of it, we’ve found something that genuinely energizes us.
More Information:
By Lantern Tours
Andy and Marybeth Maercklein, Owners
617-329-9630
[email protected]
Bylanterntours.com
May 4, 2026 | Kid Related
Tell us about your business and how you help/serve your clients. I run a sewing school for children and adults ages 6 and up, where students learn to create all kinds of fun, hands-on projects, everything from a personalized tote bag on day one (to carry all their sewing things) to stuffed animals, pajamas, dresses, gowns, T-shirts, sweatshirts embroidered with flowers, animals, or their own name, blankets, and quilts. Every student leaves with something they made themselves, and that sense of pride is really what it’s all about. I also offer alteration services for the community. This is my 20th year sharing my love of sewing in Marblehead, and I’m just as excited about it as I was on day one.
What inspired you to start your business? I was invited to teach sewing at Tower’s Summer Camp, and the moment I saw how much the kids lit up, I knew I had found something special. The camp loaned me their machines, and in 2006 I opened my school at 22 Commercial Street. My very first students were a Girl Scout troop, and we were off and running. I started with after-school classes, then added a Summer SEWing FUN Program that ends each week with a Fashion FUNway (our own little runway show). We’ve displayed student creations at the Marblehead Arts Festival for years and have even brought home a few awards. Watching kids walk that runway with something they made with their own hands, there’s really nothing like it.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in running a business? Business, like life, is always changing, and the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that you have to be willing to reinvent yourself. I’ve adapted and recreated my programs more times than I can count, and I’ve learned never to give up, even when things get hard. What keeps me going is simple: the look on a student’s face the moment they finish their project. That joy never gets old, and it reminds me why I do this every single day.
What do you love most about Marblehead? I love the small-town, tight-knit feeling that Marblehead has always had. I grew up here…Devereaux School, Gerry School, the Jr. High, MHS, and I raised all three of my children here. At some point I searched across the country looking at other places to live, and I came back knowing: there is nowhere else like Marblehead. Home really is where the heart is.
What is something people would be surprised to learn about you? After 20 years of teaching, I’m still genuinely surprised and delighted every single time a student finishes a project. People might expect that to wear off, it never has. I think that’s because sewing gives kids (and adults) a kind of confidence you can’t get from a screen. They made something real, with their hands, and they get to wear it or use it or give it as a gift. That never gets old for me.
For More Information:
SEWing-FUN
Nancy E. Easterbrooks, Owner
24 Bessom St, #1, Marblehead
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