Behind the Summer Soirees

A keen observer noted that anything that isn’t ridiculously expensive on Martha’s Vineyard is ridiculously cheap. Boutique or Dumptique. One-off or secondhand. Big ticket or barter.

The difference is generally that you find summer visitors dealing in the former and year-round residents in the latter, with notable exceptions; many summer residents love Vineyard thrift shops (witness Olga Hirshhorn’s curating of the Chicken Alley Art Show on Sunday) while a number of people with second (and third) home wealth now make the Island their first and primary residence.

Either way, it’s hard to avoid the topic of money on the Vineyard, where for so long residents were happy to leave that kind of talk to people on the mainland, or as we call it, America. But the ability to hang on to family land, tend a large vegetable garden and livestock or fish and shellfish to feed a family and live simply has largely vanished from this Island, even as living local and downsizing have become fashionable. The year-round population has grown as have the demands of the visitors, and with all that comes a need for more services. But with all that also comes the need for greater protection of what the Island is about, its rural character, its natural environment, its closely-linked community — homeland security, Vineyard-style.

Both the services and the protection tends to come from thinly-staffed nonprofits. These do everything from helping organize our health care to improving directly the health of people with specific conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and cancer. They bring opportunities for our children to learn art and performance and they bring culture to adults when most of the movie theatres go dark and the lecture series have gone quiet for the long winter. They husband open spaces and watch the quality of the fishing grounds. They help alcoholics stay sober and feed people who don’t have enough to eat.

These services are filled not by quick-buck, pop-up shops but by nonprofits, backed by the generosity of Vineyarders, seasonal and year-round alike. If it sometimes feels as if everything operates with a hat out, take note of Peter Temple’s article on the opposite page which says nonprofits account for thirteen per cent of the Island’s gross domestic product, which adds up to more community support than the combined budgets for the six Island towns.

The nonprofits can’t tax us, so they just ask us — as creatively as they can, and maybe more often, given the recession creating more needy people as well as cutbacks in grant money. Many Vineyard nonprofits are in worrying deficit, be they large ones that look after affordable housing or museum history, or small ones.

So if you have sent one or more of them a check, good for you. If you haven’t, consider doing so if you can. If you are visiting, there is no departure tax but leave behind a little something to keep the Island as you like it. You’ll like the feeling, too. It’s a very meaningful way to say farewell until next time.