This year’s is “Healthy Me, Healthy Lawrence,” with activities tying into the centennial of the Spanish flu epidemic that peaked in 1918, killing more than 2,000 city residents. The Creative Economy Fund awards grants to faculty for projects that benefit the state’s economy and improve quality of life.Įach year, the Rising Loaves camp has a different historical theme. A second $21,000 grant this spring doubled the number of children who can participate. Initial funding for Rising Loaves was provided by the UMass President’s Office through a $20,000 Creative Economy Grant awarded to Forrant in 2015. Both programs, along with the “Slice of Bread Loaf” program at the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence for younger elementary school students, are based on the workshop model developed by Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, which trains public school teachers in disadvantaged communities. The project was started by Forrant, a history center board member, along with fellow board member Mary Guerrero, the center’s staff and Andover Bread Loaf, which also runs a summer writing program for Lawrence high school students at Phillips Academy Andover. Rising Loaves Director Mary Guerrero and small-group leader Lidyanette Gonzalez work with campers in the carpenter shop. Every day, they write in small groups led by high school and college students, meeting in the center’s buildings – the stable, the blacksmith and carpenter shops, the cashier’s office and the research room – all in the former Essex Company mill complex, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. They do hands-on activities, explore the history center’s archives, take field trips and talk with local poets and artists. Rising Loaves is a free program for Lawrence schoolchildren from third grade through middle school. “It feels weird with the big group,” he says. He likes writing stories and poems, although he hasn’t yet found the courage to read his work aloud to the whole camp at the end of the day. His small group usually meets in the blacksmith’s shop, where they crowd in with the anvil, the forge, a workbench and dozens of tools. This is Rivera’s third year at the Lawrence Students Writing Project Rising Loaves camp. “I like studying history, how it’s been in the past and how it can help us in the future,” says Rivera, a rising seventh-grader at UP Academy Oliver. Robert Forrant and the Lawrence History Center. He’s a camper at the “Rising Loaves” writing and history program for Lawrence schoolchildren, started by University Prof. Reynaldo Rivera, 12, is spending three weeks this summer surrounded by history.
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