Clara Wainwright at Community Learning Center

“Mending Baghdad,” a recent quilt by Clara Wainwright

Clara Wainwright, fabric and celebration artist, is working with ESOL students and a teacher at the Community Learning Center. The students will create a fabric hanging to express their own cultures and experiences.  This will be hung in the CLC’s new building; we hope to feature the CLC "quilt" at StoryStream Cambridge’s tent at the 2013 Cambridge River Festival, and to present some of the contributing artists to tell the story of their contributions.

SSC Grant for Family Shelter Workshops

Dr. Lani Peterson

The Cambridge Agassiz Harvard Fund has awarded StoryStream Cambridge a generous grant for Healing Through Stories at Hildebrand.  This grant will support storytelling workshops for parents at the family shelters in Cambridge served by Hildebrand Family Self-Help Center.  

Dr. Lani Peterson, psychologist and professional storyteller, will lead six evening workshops.  In addition, she will present an overview of this project to the entire agency staff on November 20. She will also present two additional workshops for the Hildebrand Cambridge staff who are directly assisting the parents at the family shelters.  Workshops with the parents will begin after the New Year.

Jen Baily Joins StoryStream Board

Jen Baily, new SSC Board Member

We are delighted to announce that Jennifer Baily is a new member of the StoryStream Cambridge Board of Directors.  Jen is the Coordinator of the Literacy Initiative of the Agenda for Children, co-chair of the Baby University Steering Committee and frequently offers storytelling workshops.  

Jen's energy, know-how, and fine understanding of the Cambridge community will make an excellent addition to StoryStream's activities.

Valiant!

Jo Radner, Daryl Mark, David Nelson, and Joan Stern
 would not let a little moisture stop them!  (But eventually it did...)

UNBELIEVABLY SOGGY! AND OUT

Gretchen helps us take down our sidewalls

There we were this morning, Daryl Mark, Joan Stern, David Nelson, and Jo Radner, wading through the puddles in our Wellingtons and Tevas, trying to put up banners and side walls in the tent that would be the (exceptionally well-named!) StoryStream Tent at the Cambridge River Festival.

We had saved the one dry spot -- in the very middle of the tent -- for our intrepid CCTV videographer Simon, who arrived and cheerfully helped us anchor the sidewalls and banners with rocks Jo had brought in a bucket from Maine.  Gretchen Ruppert-Allen, artist for our recycling program, arrived and plunged in to help us tame the billowing walls.  David Nelson, who had volunteered to be our sound tech, was marveling at the challenge of setting up a sound system with no supply of electricity.  (The rest of us were wondering about electrocution, if wires were going to be laid in the puddles.)

Just when we were all thoroughly wet, the announcement came from the Commonwealth:  THE RIVER FESTIVAL HAS BEEN CANCELLED!  And it's official:

The Department of Conservation & Recreation along with the Cambridge Arts Council have decided to cancel the Cambridge River Festival due to severe weather conditions, concerns for public safety and possible flooding at stages. There is no rain date for the event.

It's all undone now.  We have tried to reach all the generous volunteers, performers and presenters, and we want them to know how VERY grateful we are, and how terribly disappointed.

BUT: There's next year.  And we have some terrific programs, all planned.  Stay tuned!

Spare Change News Vendors Tell Stories

Algia Benjamin and Michael Shorey, SCN vendors

James Shearer, co-founder 

of SCN

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of Spare Change News, StoryStream conducted a storytelling session with many of the homeless vendors on March 30, 2012. The vendors talked about their experiences selling the paper on the streets of Cambridge -- what it means to them to be part of the business, what their experiences have been, and their views of our city and its people.  Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) filmed the session.  Click here for a brief sample.

The event was one of six “StoryTrades” – storytelling circles – that StoryStream has organized in 2011-2012 as a result of a Year of the Regions Grant from the National Storytelling Network.  Storyteller Jo Radner interviewed four vendors, homeless and formerly homeless, who have been selling Spare Change News for many years.

Charles Stallings, SCN vendor

Several of the vendors and writers of Spare Change News will be coming to the StoryStream Tent (see below) at the June 2 Cambridge River Festival to share stories about their experiences and about the significance of this unusual newspaper.

Spare Change News was founded in 1992 by a group of homeless individuals and one housed advocate, who was a member of Boston Jobs with Peace. Since its inception, the publication has striven to simultaneously elevate the voices of homeless and otherwise economically disadvantaged people in the Greater Boston area, and to provide an opportunity for low-threshold employment to people who find it difficult to obtain more conventional work due to myriad types of adversity.

Visit the StoryStream Tent at the Cambridge River Festival -- Saturday, June 2, 2012

Once more, StoryStream will present an afternoon of varied storytelling activities in the Storytelling Tent, near the Weeks Footbridge on the banks of the Charles River.

ALL AFTERNOON -- Noon - 6:00

Tales of ordinary and extraordinary life in Cambridge neighborhoods and on the streets, memory games, immigrant stories, virtuoso teen performances, folktales in English & sign language, Story Flags, and audience participation!

Create your personal Story Flag to display in the Storytelling Tent!  Thanks to Clara Wainwright, quiltmaker and celebration artist, StoryStream will be displaying story flags made by immigrant residents of Cambridge.  Visitors to the Storytelling Tent will also have the opportunity to create colorful story flags and hang them to make a vivid display of images and memories of Cambridge.

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12:00   Less Is More:  Folktales and StoryTrades about Recycling

               Doria Hughes, storyteller, and Evan Wondolowski, artist           

1:00     “Let’s play, Cambridge!”

               Beyond the 4th Wall Teen Improv Troupe

1:40     Unseen Borders: Stories for Families in American Sign Language and English

              Deaf teller KR Glickman & hearing teller/interpreter Tony Toledo

2:45     Behind the Scenes at Spare Change News

               Stories from writers and vendors of Boston’s homeless newspaper

3:30     Story Flag Stories -- Memory Stories

               Jo Radner and Cambridge residents from all over the world