Good Neighbors put on puppet show

Ilyse Kramer Staff Writer

On Thursday, April 6, the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (RSL) will sponsor a puppet show for the middle school as part of the Good Neighbors Partnership. Director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life Sam Speers acts as chair of the committee. Speers describes “The Big Art program” that sponsored the Puppet Show. BIG Art is part of RSL’s program called “Celebration and the Arts.” “‘BIG Art’ is dedicated to giving students and community members’ skills in making public art and changing local communities–have made our own giant puppets, mosaic benches, taught stilt-walking, started the Garden Art Space, and more,” said Speers.

Using funds allocated by College President Fran Fergusson, the Good Neighbors Partnership gives grants to chosen local institutions. According to RSL Intern John Delap ’05, “Our work is guided by an assets-based approach to identifying issues in our local community.”

Taking ‘BIG Art’ to the middle school is the RSL’s effort to make the community part of a Vassar education. “We asked Arm of the Sea, a theatre company based in Saugerties, NY, for a menu of traveling shows they might be able to perform on that date,” said Delap.

They received two possible plays from the theater company: one entitled “The Harvest” which tells the story of Cesare, a migrant laborer in the Hudson Valley, and a second entitled “The Turning of the Tide,” which chronicles the Hudson River estuary.” According to Delap, at an initial planning meeting, Good Neighbors and members of the PMS administration agreed to choose “The Harvest” as the production to be presented. The PMS administration said that they were going to bring this up at a school-wide faculty meeting. At that meeting, the teachers of the middle school agreed that while the content of the show would be great for eigth graders, they voiced their concerns that the sixth and seventh graders would be too young to understand the themes of the production.

The teachers agreed that “The Turning of the Tides” would appeal to a larger age range and The PMS administration then asked the Good Neighbors Committee if they could switch shows, to which they agreed.

“We’ve wanted our BIG Art programs to have more community impact,” said Speers. “So we decided to support Good Neighbor’s work at the Poughkeepsie Middle School by sponsoring the Arm of the Sea production at the school itself—and we are bringing students from Vassar with us.”

Now in its fourth year, Good Neighbors Partnerships engages in many activities with the Poughkeepsie Community. They developed the Poughkeepsie Farm Project’s “Food Security Initiatives” to make fresh produce available to low-income Poughkeepsie residents. The Committee includes students, faculty and administrators.

Good Neighbors has recently forged a partnership with Catharine Street Community Center’s KidzSquash program, which will provide new uniforms for the primary school age children in their academic, social, and athletic mentoring program.

For the past three years, the Committee has worked closely with Poughkeepsie Middle School (PMS) to develop an Arts After School program, which will paint a new mural for the school’s music wing. Last semester, they coordinated “Boys Night Out” and “Girls Night Out,” during which the men's Soccer Team and the women's Cross Country Team engaged in fun activities with the Middle School. More than 70 middle school students attended each event. The Good Neighbors Committee also hosted the PMS music ensemble at All College Day on Feb. 22. The PMS music ensemble played several pieces at the kick-off event.

Good Neighbors Partnerships does not just act as a financial benefactor. “In addition to the small grants we give, our goal is to help other parts of campus life think about the Poughkeepsie community as another site for the work they do, for developing our skills and interests,” said Delap.