If you're in the Three Rivers area, drop by Huss School today for our first annual Huss Future Festival! The festival features a giant rummage sale, art vendors, live music, free fair trade coffee from World Fare and tours of the building. We've even got a ping-pong challenge and an apple barrel train!
We'll see you there!
Each June, the Three Rivers Area Chamber of Commerce sponsors the Water Festival, a three-day event with carnival rides, live music, fireworks, crafts, children's events and SO much more. This year, for the first time, *cino had a presence with the non-profit booths to publicize what's happening at Huss School, including the community garden. The garden folks put together an amazing display, including huge stand-up veggies and some of their very own monstrous radishes that everyone kept mistaking for beets!
Rob, Paul and I had a good time hanging out in the park for a couple of days introducing people to the vision for the old school. One thing Paul found interesting as he talked with folks at the booth is that everyone knows where Huss School is, which affirms what a landmark building we've inherited. We acknowledge that the task of stewarding an historic building with so much community memory invested in it is a special task indeed, requiring a lot of care and community involvement.
We also witnessed some of the negativity that has plagued the second district neighborhoods--too many people simply have no hope for the place and were surprised when, for example, we said we hadn't had any vandalism to the community garden yet. We look forward to inspiring imaginations to the contrary!
On May 22, 18 folks from Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis--9 adults and 9 children--made the trek up to Three Rivers to spend a day getting to know our city and working at Huss School. Interestingly, the church finds itself in the middle of a similar project to ours, having recently taken ownership of an old school building next to their church that they are converting to 32 rental units for neighborhood housing. So, not only did we get a lot of work done around Huss School, we also learned a lot about the things Englewood has been doing to both raise funds and renovate their property. It was a great day!
On Thursday, the Three Rivers Commercial-News ran a great front page story covering our first planting at the Tripple Ripple Community Gardens at Huss School. Here's how Brenda McGowan, one of the garden organizers, contextualizes the work:
This is really a social justice project. The whole goal is to take the people in the community and teach them how to provide for themselves the things that they need. We all need good, healthy food. Whether you can afford it or not, it's here for you.
Last weekend (as many of you know), a film class from Calvin College visited Three Rivers to film a short promotional video for Imagining Space and a short, original film with Huss School as the shoot location.
Overall, the experience seems to have been a great success! The students had a great time in Three Rivers and all of the logistical details were seamlessly attended to by local friends (thanks Julie and Tim!). It was really wonderful to see such creative people using the space; hopefully the weekend was a glimpse into the future.
We're looking forward to seeing the final edits of both films. In fact, we're exploring the possibility of showing the original short somewhere in Three Rivers when it's ready ... we'll see!
We already linked to Bruce Snook's article for the River Country Journal, but the local radio station and the Three Rivers Commercial-News have picked up the story as well (thanks, Elena!).
The past few days have been a ton of work for the students and their professor, Daniel Garcia, but they look like they're having a lot of fun, as well. Thanks to Julie, Tim and everyone else who have helped make their visit memorable and comfortable!
Bruce Snook has posted a wonderful story with audio and photos about our first adventure in hosting an educational program at Huss School. Rob and I are working in Grand Rapids this week, so we can't be on site in Three Rivers to help host the students until tomorrow evening, but the process of getting things set up and watching them go smoothly from afar has been so exciting--what we were hoping to do and what everyone is chipping in to help achieve is actually happening!
Witness the ripple effects... A class of 10 film students, three actors and one professor are in Three Rivers for three days and nights. For fourteen people who have probably never been to Three Rivers before, suddenly our town is on their radar. They're not only making a connection with a place, but with people: journalists who are recording the story of their project, community organizers whom they're interviewing for their films, and pastors and other friends who are providing food and accommodations. Though students subsist on little, the money they have been able to collect for a food budget has been distributed to local grocery stores and farmers. Their work at the school is bringing artistic eyes to the neighborhood and laughter and creativity to the building. The fruits of their work--a promotional film for the future projects of the school and an original piece written and produced by the students--will eventually be seen by hundreds, maybe even thousands more people. Beyond the films themselves, the adventure of filming on location in such a unique town and building will be a story the students tell over and over again for the rest of their lives.
And it all started with a conversation. Then a few e-mails and a lot of prayers. Then a group of over 150 people around the world, all contributing what they were able to give to help meet a preposterous goal.
To be continued...
Last night after Compline, we sat up late into the night with Brother Cuthbert and two long-time Abbey guests at St. Gregory's in Three Rivers. We had a great rambling conversation about the possibilities for partnership between *cino's Imagining Space project and the Abbey, which seem to be myriad. Exploring the combination and intersection of cultural engagement with a contemplative focus seems like it could yield some interesting and winsome results.
The monks (particularly Brother Cuthbert) have been very supportive and encouraging; we look forward to working with them in future!
Last night we held a hastily-arranged question and answer session in Three Rivers about the Imagining Space project. We gathered at World Fare (the fair trade store Kirstin and I helped found in 2003) to eat delicious treats (thanks Amber!) and discuss possibilities for the Huss School property.
About a dozen people with various connections to the project--from neighborhood residents to relatives--talked about dreams, obstacles and fundraising ideas. The excitement buzzing around the table was invigorating; everyone in Three Rivers who hears about this project seems to be happy at the prospect of the building being used for something that will bring many benefits to the community.
If we manage to purchase Huss, we'll certainly be doing more of these sessions in the future!
As we've been searching for feedback on the possibilities we're proposing for Huss School, we've been trying to get the word out around Three Rivers. Imagining Space has been featured recently...