The Maryland Humanities Council has launched a new website, titled Let’s Be Shore.org, which the Council hopes will serve as a discussion forum for land use and environmental issues facing the Eastern Shore.  Individuals may post video or audio statements and visitors are encouraged to respond to and discuss the posts.  The website also offers a blog.  The website’s homepage offer the following explanation about what the site intends to accomplish:

Let’s Be Shore seeks to bring people with divergent perspectives together for respectful dialogue, offering a forum for residents to express views on the issues of land use, agriculture, the economy, and water quality along Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Let’s Be Shore uses photography, short films, and other humanities pieces to spur Eastern Shore residents to share their personal connection to the water, think critically about water quality, and come together to better understand the complexity of this multi-faceted issue.

In this way, the project uses the humanities to encourage Marylanders to get involved in public discourse, promoting civil dialogue and civic engagement on the local level.  This website provides a platform for participants to share their views, connect to community issues, reflect on their on their own ideas, and make their own decisions.

Residents who wish to post an audio or video statement should attend a Let’s Be Shore sharing station public event that will be held around the Shore this summer.  Followup community conversations will be held later in the fall.