The Provincetown Community Compact honors Andrea Pluhar with the David Asher Volunteer Award

The Provincetown Community Compact honors Andrea Pluhar with the David Asher Volunteer Award at the 39th Provincetown Swim for Life & Paddler Flotilla,
The Ecology of Care, set for September 12, 2026

At my first Swim I was swept up by the energy and wonderful chaos of the event! AIDS had such a profound effect on Provincetown.
~Andrea Pluhar

Artist Andrea Pluhar of Wellfleet will receive the annual David Asher Volunteer Award at the 39th Provincetown Swim for Life & Paddler Flotilla, The Ecology of Care, at the post-Swim awards ceremony on Saturday, September 12 at 2:00 pm at Johnson Street Beach. This fundraiser, founded by the Provincetown Community Compact, is the quintessential Provincetown tradition that has raised $8M for AIDS, women’s health and the community since 1988, supporting twenty non-profit beneficiaries. For information, to donate or to register to swim, kayak or volunteer go to swim4life.org.

Andrea Pluhar, of Pluhar Creative Design Services, has quietly assisted the Swim for Life with all its graphic design needs since 2010, bringing each year’s selected artist’s image graphically to life for t-shirts, flyers, mugs and caps. Her Cape Cod roots go back to her grandparents, who settled in Wellfleet in 1933. Her grandfather, a writer, bought a house in the back woods of Wellfleet where he raised his two children. Andrea would visit their home in summers while spending winters growing up in New York City. She attended Vassar College before transferring to a BFA program at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts in Boston
Andrea and her husband, photographer Kevin Thomas, made the big move to the Cape in 1991 where they raised two sons. She chaired the Wellfleet School Committee, was on the board of Art Peace and a member of the town’s recycling committee. She presently runs a contra dance in the winters, and founded the annual Wellfleet PorchFest with the support of The Compact’s Think-ubator program. This year on August 29, the 11th annual PorchFest presents 60 bands that will enliven the front porches and lawns of Wellfleet’s Cultural District.

With other members of PorchFest, Andrea created a musical version of The Compact’s Think-ubator program, Narrowland Music, Inc., a non-profit whose mission is to support acoustic and traditional music and dance on the Outer and Mid-Cape. She is currently the board’s Treasurer.

The 39th Swim for Life in Provincetown Harbor begins at 12:00 noon on September 12 for both the 1.2-mile and Half Mile Swims, and the public is invited to cheer the swimmers on at the finish line at Johnson Street Beach, at private Watch Parties along the way or by joining gatherings at the Cape Codder Guest House, St. Mary of the Harbor and Angel Foods parking lot.

Also on Swim Day is a Swim for Life at Wellfleet’s Great Pond beginning at 8:30 am, limited to 50 swimmers.

The famous Mermaid Brunch at Provincetown’s Johnson Street’s Beach will be catered by Far Land Provisions, with The Awards Ceremony set for 2:00 pm. The event is free and open to the public. Swimmers may register up to the day of the event and volunteers and kayakers are asked to register ahead of the fundraiser at Swim4Life.org

The Provincetown Community Compact is a non-profit organization established in 1993 to nurture the Provincetown and Outer Cape community. Its mission is to enhance the well-being of the community through projects that incorporate the arts, the environment and the economy. It has birthed thirteen non-profits such as the Provincetown International Film Festival, the Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, Provincetown Commons, Summer of Sass, Tim McCarthy Human Rights Champion Fund and Pilgrim Bark Park. The results position The Compact as an economic generator. Twenty-eight business sponsors support this community celebration.

Along with the Swim for Life and the Think-ubator, other Compact projects include the Prayer Ribbons, Underrepresented Communities and dune shack residencies in Cape Cod National Seashore.