Volunteer

Many hands make light work – the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival would not be possible without the support of many volunteers.

General Volunteers

We need general volunteers ahead of time, on Saturday and Sunday during Festival hours, and to clean up after the Festival closes. Here are just a few of the volunteer opportunities. More details will be posted on our online volunteer sign up page when it goes live.

Festival Set-Up – This always happens on the Sunday before the Festival, which will be April 28, 2024, and includes a pot luck lunch. This is mostly manual labor, like setting up sheep pens.

During the Festival – Sometimes we need a helping hand to just carry something or pitch in where needed. We need general volunteers for various tasks on Saturday and Sunday during Festival hours.

Sunday Night Tear Down – Time to put the Festival back in the box for another year! Young and/or strong arms are especially needed here to help take down the sheep pens. THERE IS A CRITICAL NEED FOR VOLUNTEERS ON SUNDAY NIGHT.

Greeters

Come be a friendly, welcoming face as a greeter at the front gate.

Retail Sales

Help with the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival’s 2024 retail sales. On Sunday, April 28, help set up shelving units (and enjoy a potluck lunch); jobs on Monday through Friday include folding T-shirts (learning the fine art of using a folding board along the way) plus stocking the shelves with T-shirts and other Festival merchandise; from Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, you can help with sales (no money handling), restocking merchandise, and keeping the lines of customers moving. After the Festival closes on Sunday there are very important take-down tasks, as the building has to be empty by the end of the evening. This is a huge undertaking that is often forgotten. Please come help if you have some time. All work is indoors, on a concrete floor.

Fleece Show & Sale

The Fleece Show committee organizes their own cadre of volunteers. If you have volunteered for them in the past, they will be in touch. If you have not volunteered for them before and are interested in doing so, email .

Everyone who volunteers gets an exclusive volunteer shirt which is NOT available to the general public!

Everyone who signs up online to work on Festival weekend receives free admission to the Festival on the day they are scheduled to work!

Maryland students – depending on county/school policies, we may be able to certify Student Service Learning hours. Please contact to discuss eligibility and requirements. 

How to Get in on the Action

Click this link or the button below to choose the tasks and times that work best for you.

Sign Up!

Volunteers MUST sign up before the Festival. We need to know who is coming and when.

All volunteers should check-in at the Volunteer Check-In Tent just outside the main gate upon arrival at the Festival, then proceed to the specified location at the start of their shift.

Email general questions about volunteering to .

Thank you for helping!

2024 Festival Gear Now Available

A selection of 2024 Festival Merchandise is now available. We have short-sleeved t-shirts, long-sleeved hooded t-shirts, three styles of bags, and two sizes of posters. Click "Read More" for details on how you can get yours!
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Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

5 days ago

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival
Henry Clemes is co-founder of the “father and son” fiber arts team @Clemes & Clemes, Inc. based in Pinole, California, Henry has been building innovative and elegant fiber arts equipment and sharing his knowledge about fiber preparation for 50 years. We are pleased to have him back teaching three full-day drum carding classes this year. Although Carding for Color: Tints and Shades has sold out, there are still a few seats available for Exploring the Drum Carder and Carding for Color: Fractals. Registration is available at www.lessonface.com/sheepandwool ... See MoreSee Less

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Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

5 days ago

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival
There are still available seats in some classes! Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is delighted to welcome Peggy Doney from Colorado Springs, Colorado to the roster of new instructors this spring! Life for Peggy was never the same after taking a spinning class with her neighbor years ago. Before she knew it, Peggy was spinning, knitting, dyeing, and creating silk fusion. Eventually, Peggy became a dyer for Treenway Silk, began exploring her own colorways, and developed her own color recipes through experimentation with gradient, triad, and monochromatic studies. She has a special interest in making accurate, reproducible dye recipes that reflect colors found in nature. Peggy loves to share her enthusiasm and knowledge of dying and has been teaching for several years at gatherings, guilds, and festivals including Taos Wool Festival. Two of her classes have already sold out, but there are still limited seats available in Tints, Tones, and Shades, Oh My! In this class, students will learn about the role of adding white, black, and gray to colors, as well as using different additives to achieve consistent depths of shade. But don’t let color theory intimidate you! Peggy will make sure you leave with lots of beautiful samples, and she is bringing lots of dye jokes and her big box of crayons as reference material! You can learn more about Peggy by following her The 100th Sheep and you can register for her class at www.lessonface.com/sheepandwool ... See MoreSee Less

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Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

6 days ago

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival
Teacher Spotlight! There are still limited seats available in some classes! Meet Jill Duarte, one of our amazing instructors at Maryland Sheep and Wool this year. Many of you know her as the co-owner of Hipstrings and a frequent contributor to PLY Magazine, but you might not know Jill also holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Evolutionary Biology! Jill’s background in science and love of fiber arts has informed her business and is reflected in the fiber, yarn, and tools she creates and produces. Jill describes herself as “inordinately fond of short-stapled fibers and fast spinning tools.” Like many of us, she cannot just stop with one fiber pursuit, and she finds herself knitting, spinning, dying, crocheting, weaving, and sometimes felting. As an author and teacher, Jill is dedicated to the resurgence of modern fiber craft that is based on a foundation of technical and historical knowledge. This year Jill is sharing her expertise with several knitting and spinning classes including Fiber Speed Dating, Spinning Short Stapled Fibers , Getting Started on a Supported Spindle, Spinning for Consistency, and Knitting with Handspun Yarn. Although a few of her classes are sold out, a limited number of seats for the remaining classes are still available here: www.lessonface.com/sheepandwool#mdsw #mdsw24 ... See MoreSee Less

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