Our Community
The ultimate goals of any communications professional are to create and develop their work, educate and inform others as a result of the work and give back to the community served as the inspiration for the work.
Based on the public response to the project, it became clear to us that the story of this migrant community was not complete. The response from the Stark County residents and the learning opportunities recognized by local educators became the final chapter of this story. This chapter does not live within the covers of the book, but within the hearts and minds of residents eager to learn about this quiet and poorly understood segment of their community. One student described the results of the five-year documentary project: “It took an unspoken community and made it speak.” A Stark County resident described that which exists beyond the pages of the book: “We have grown to see others not as a segment, different from us, but as simply us, living and working together in this community.”
The opportunity to connect the project to the community captures the final chapter of Growing Season and depicts a community discovering its Latino neighbors through community events, structured projects and classroom experiences. Through the lesson plans provided by Stark County educators and Kent State University students and by compiling comments from letters, newspaper articles, presentations and the exhibit we are able to present this final chapter of Growing Season, The Life of a Migrant Community. |
