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Date: 3/8/2023
LUDLOW — For over a year, the Ludlow 250th Semi-Quincentennial Celebration Committee has been planning an extravagant celebration event that will take place next year.
In February 2022, Ludlow’s 250th Anniversary Committee hosted its kickoff town hall to raise awareness for the upcoming celebration, brainstorm ideas and to recruit more volunteers for the celebration.
Since then, the committee has hosted multiple fundraiser events and meetings to help fund and plan the event.
According to the committee their mission is, “to design a year-long celebration of Ludlow’s strong sense of town pride, which is rooted in our diverse cultural and historical treasures. We will showcase the accomplishments of our thriving community to those near and far and the young and old; leaving a legacy for future generations. All are welcome and encouraged to join in our celebration of the February 28, 1774, signing of our charter. Happy 250th Birthday Ludlow.”
Feb. 28, 2023, marked the 249th anniversary of Ludlow signing its charter and means the 250th celebration is now less than a year away.
The last time Ludlow hosted a celebration of this magnitude was for their 200th bicentennial anniversary in 1974 which was also a year long event.
Ludlow 250th Celebration Committee Co-Chair Linda Collette said she, Co-Chair Kathy Ouimette and the committee have been working hard to learn from the last celebration and put together fundraisers for this year to help raise money for celebration events in 2024.
Collette is a lifelong Ludlow resident who said she has been working on this event for over two years but is honored to do so with the help of her committee.
“We are excited to put together all the events we are. It is a lot of work but truly an honor. I was appointed by the Board of Selectmen to be chairwomen of this event and it is a title that I take seriously. There has not been a day in the last two years that I haven’t worked on this in some capacity,” Collette said.
According to Collette there are plenty of fundraising events the committee is putting together this year because they would like to raise as much funds as possible for the yearlong celebration next year.
Collette added, “We need to raise funds for a monumental year of events. We are hitting the ground running but can always use more money and help from the community. We need to raise about $250,000 more to be able to do it right and put on an event that people will remember for years to come. We want these events to be no cost or at the worst a very minimal cost for residents to attend but we can’t do that without some more help from the community to raise funds.”
The committee has designed mugs and wool knit hats for sale and is in the early process of designing a history picture book that will include old pictures of Ludlow to showcase.
The merchandise can be purchased at It Makes Scents and Outside the Box gift shop located at 44 Sewall St.
Once the spring season starts, Collette plans to place one sign at Town Hall and another sign in front of the Hubbard Memorial Library when you first drive into town showing how much the committee has raised so far and how far away they are from hitting their goal.
Some plans for 2024 right now are a “First Night” event toward the end of February, a parade and picnic in June, a car show in July, a golf tournament in September and a “take on Celebrate Ludlow” in the fall with seasonal activities, according to Collette.
Collette said that the committee is also in the process of finding the time capsule that was buried in the town hall area in 1974.
“We are looking for that with the hopes to unveil it at the end of this year in a ceremonial event so people can see what is in there and think about what we should put in our 2024 time capsule,” she said.
If enough funds are raised, the hope is that the First Night event will include fireworks, snowman making, ice carving, fire pits and “fun family oriented events,” according to Collette.
The parade and picnic in June will be a parade featuring business, groups and organizations in town followed by the town block party picnic.
For the parade and picnic, the committee will close off an area of the park in central Ludlow and have musical entertainment, food, drinks from Vanished Valley and Iron Duke breweries, fireworks, and old time games like tug o’ war.
Vanished Valley and Iron Duke will be creating a special brew just for the event.
Collette said the main goal of the Ludlow 250th Semi-Quincentennial Celebration Committee is not only be able to put on an event that everyone remembers but to also help the community learn about the history of where they live.
She added, “I feel like we are missing a whole demographic of people that we want to reach out to. The 20-, 30- and 40-year-olds who were not around at the last celebration and help get them the education about our town.”
The Ludlow 250th Semi-Quincentennial Celebration Committee has about 10 members, but Collette said she would like to see more help from the community to put on this “monumental” event.
“Right now, we need more volunteers and sponsors to create these events. They can either participate in the parade or help us sponsor musical entertainment. The more people we can get to help us the more successful we can be,” Collette said.
There are over a dozen fundraiser events the committee has planned for this year and Collette said the best way to keep up to date or find a way to volunteer is follow the committees Instagram and Facebook page at Ludlowma250 or visit their website at www.ludlowma250.org.
The Ludlow 250th Semi-Quincentennial Celebration Committee meets every other Thursday.