Ken Turino of Historic New England, third from right, presents the Community Preservation Grant to the Root District Game Club’s Jean Lawe. Other Game Club members in the photograph, from left to right: Brian Cook, Suzie Wallis, John Lawe and Courtney Dobyns. The Lawes and Suzie Wallis first became involved with the schoolhouse in the 1960s and have been working to preserve the building ever since.

Ever since Root Schoolhouse, a 1937 one-room schoolhouse located across from Hogwash Farm on Union Village Road at the intersection of Goodrich Four Corners Road, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013, interest in this historic treasure has spread far beyond Norwich. This year, Boston-based Historic New England, the nation’s oldest, largest, and most comprehensive regional heritage organization, gave the Root District Game Club a $1,000 Community Preservation Grant to support its efforts to rebuild the schoolhouse’s deteriorating foundation and reopen the building for public use.

Every year, Historic New England distributes six awards to historic preservation projects in each of the six New England states. The Root District Game Club, the caretaker and owner of the schoolhouse since 1952 when the building started being used as a community center, is honored to be this year’s lone award recipient for Vermont. In October, Historic New England’s Ken Turino visited with members of the Game Club at the schoolhouse and presented the award to Jean Lawe. Jean, like fellow Game Club officers Suzie Wallis and John Lawe, has been working to preserve the schoolhouse since the 1960s. All three remain an integral part of the current effort to save the building and hope to see their work completed in 2017.

Concerns about the deteriorating foundation of Root Schoolhouse are nearly as old as the building itself. In a letter dated November 12, 1975, the officers of the Game Club reported to its members, “We have come a long way this year. This time last year we estimated that we would need over $1000 to pay for materials for restoration of the Clubhouse alone. Thanks to some very generous gifts of money, and much time and labor by many people, including some non-members, the work on the foundations has been completed.” Jean Lawe was one of the officers who signed this letter.

That project, according to a January 17, 1975 story by the Granite State Gazette entitled “Goodrich Schoolhouse Project Restoring Neighborliness Too” led to a “social renaissance” in the Goodrich Four Corners neighborhood. In that article, Game Club co-president Robert Ladd reports being surprised by the terrific response to the “save-the-schoolhouse” appeal: “We think it’s kind of beneficial to the community to keep a place which can be used for a variety of purposes…. Years ago, people used to use their community churches and schoolhouses, and maybe they’re coming back to it. Maybe people are more interested in staying closer to home.”

Root Schoolhouse, Norwich, Vermont

Today, the unstable foundation is again threatening the future of the schoolhouse. As it did in 1975, the Game Club is working to save the schoolhouse and return it to public use for the first time since 2011, and once again can gratefully report, “we have come a long way this year.” In 2016, the Game Club received “very generous gifts of money” from many friends as well as grants from Mascoma Savings Bank, the Norwich Women’s Club, and the Country School Association of America. To date, the Game Club has raised over $35,000 towards this effort, and is now working to raise another $5,000 by the end of 2016 so that it can claim the full $40,000 matching pledge from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation. This should allow the Game Club to completely rebuild the foundation, at last finishing the work started over forty years ago, and have the schoolhouse ready for limited use before the end of 2017.

Root District Game Club supporters from 1975, the last time major work on the schoolhouse’s foundation was performed, in a photograph first published by the Granite State Gazette that year. Pictured in the back row (from left to right) are Sidney Cook, Irma Cook, Robert Ladd; in the front row are Ruth Cook, Jean Lawe, Barbara Ladd, and Fred Ladd. Jean Lawe remains active with the Game Club today.

If you are interested in supporting the effort to save and reopen Root Schoolhouse, you can find information about donating on the Game Club’s website: www.rootschoolhouse.com. (The Game Club is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.) You can also support the schoolhouse by purchasing a DVD of the 2015 Historic New England/CATV documentary “Back to School: Lessons from Norwich’s One-Room Schoolhouses” at Dan & Whit’s. This DVD was made possible thanks to a Community Projects Grant from the Norwich Women’s Club.

MCS principal Mr. Bill

On a recent October morning, Mr. Bill had field trips on his mind. “What I like about field trips is that they are not just about going out to see something and enjoying it,” says Mr. Bill. “It connects back.” Whether it’s kindergartners picking apples and then selling them to the rest of the school to learn a little about entrepreneurship, or fourth graders going to the Tunbridge Fair to see pig races at an old-time fair as part of their unit on Vermont history, the value of these excursions extends far beyond the undeniable fun they provide.

Through field trips, children are able to recognize that “…although a lot of learning happens in schools, schools are not the only source of learning,” says Mr. Bill. “The whole world is our source and we don’t want people to get in the mindset that the only meaningful learning can happen in the classroom.”

This fall, in addition to apple picking, kindergartners picked pumpkins at Cedar Circle and then practiced inquiry science by working together to formulate questions about the pumpkins (Will they float? Does the size determine whether they will float?), hypothesizing, and then experimenting so they could see for themselves. First graders visited the meadow a couple times a week throughout the fall as part of their science study. As part of their unit on social studies, they visited the Norwich Historical Society to learn about community helpers and what their jobs were like a long time ago. They also walked to Tracy Hall on Election Day to quietly watch the process of voting, before returning to their classroom to talk about their observations and then privately vote for president and tally the vote. Second graders regularly visited Blood Brook and then took a tour from its beginning to its end. In October, as part of their study of the forest, third graders visited the Squam Science Center, where they observed many of the mammals that live in the forest. Earlier in the fall, third graders walked around the Norwich Green and identified the different species of trees planted along the fence. In addition to the Tunbridge Fair, as part of the Learning about the Environment through Experiential Education Projects (LEEEP) Program, led by Lindsay Putnam, the fourth graders visited an abandoned beaver lodge up on Chapel Hill Road, and were even allowed to crawl in to see what it’s like inside the beaver lodge. As part of their Vermont history unit, fourth graders went on a tour of the state house. In September, fifth graders took a two-night, three-day trip to the Hulbert Outdoor Education Center where they learned about leadership and group cohesiveness.  Sixth graders did the ropes course at Dartmouth to challenge themselves and deepen their cooperation and decision-making skills, as well as their self-confidence.

“People learn in different ways. So the more experiences you give people in different situations, the more likely they will have multiple ways of approaching a new problem or a new opportunity,” says Mr. Bill. “Students who get restless in a classroom are suddenly at home in the forest. Those who are at home in a classroom get stretched by the forest.”

The budget only covers one third of the cost of field trips, says Mr. Bill, but he considers them “a key part of our program.” Parents are sometimes charged for a third of the cost, and the other third comes from grants.

“The primary reason it is so important to take field trips is that direct learning is far more effective than indirect learning,” says Mr. Bill. Students should have the opportunity to touch leaves on the trees that they are learning to identify, look at bugs in a magnifying glass, get their feet muddy in the brook. “You can talk forever about what larvae and butterflies look like,” says Mr. Bill, “but the more direct experience, the more powerful the emotional response. And emotions are such a key component to long-term learning.”

Kids on scooters enjoying the skatepark

On September 24th of this year, a beautiful thing happened.

Close to 350 kids of all ages (2-40+) gathered at Riverside Community Park in West Lebanon to celebrate the renaming of the skatepark and to commit to its revitalization. As with most successful endeavors, this was and continues to be a joint effort between dedicated individuals and public and private entities.

As is often the case, it seems that when tragedy occurs, magic soon follows. Thus is the case with the new life and energy being poured into the recently named Rusty Berrings Skatepark. Yes, “Rusty” knew how to spell “bearing” but being more than a little unconventional was how he rolled (no pun intended!). An avid skateboarder, artist and overall creative genius, Tyler Kirschner’s (aka Rusty Berrings) memory will live on in the Upper Valley’s local skatepark. Tyler passed away on November 6, 2015 at 28 years old. An extremely generous and creative guy, Tyler struggled for years with mental illness; he undoubtedly continues to share his genius from a more peaceful place.

Work in progress

Tyler’s parents, local concert promoter, Buddy Kirschner, and his wife, Ginny, endured the unfathomable loss of their child. What has risen up from the depths of their pain has been the magic referred to above. From the outpouring of love and support from those closest to them, to the newly-formed connections made with Tyler’s online skateboarding group, to the friendships made with construction workers at the skatepark, a fire has been ignited in both Buddy and Ginny to keep Tyler’s spirit alive in their lives and in the legacy that he is leaving behind for others to share.

“It’s amazing but true, as one door closes, many more open,” said Buddy during our recent interview in the living room at the Norwich Inn.

“This whole year has been about the skatepark. We have put on benefit concerts [see sidebar, next page], worked with the City [of Lebanon], learned how to write fundraising letters…,” Buddy continued.

Pouring cement for the updated park

“I’ve gotten really strong from shoveling dirt and gravel all summer,” laughed Ginny, referring to helping out with the first phase of rehabbing the skatepark. “It has been very therapeutic to have this project that is so near and dear to my heart that keeps us connected to Tyler.”

When he was 8 years old, Tyler started skateboarding behind the Marion Cross School in Norwich. Skateboarding (and rollerblading) has endured a bad rap largely due to the fact that many of its participants represent a counter-culture of young people. In a recent fundraising letter, Paul Coats, Director of Lebanon Recreation and Parks, wrote:

“20 years ago these sports were frowned upon because there were no legal public spaces to skate. Instead of shunning these individuals, the City decided to embrace them by pulling the community together to build Lebanon’s first skatepark…”

Old skatepark with wooden ramps in need of much repair

Thankfully, through its commitment to reinvest in the revitalization and the ongoing maintenance of the skatepark, the City of Lebanon continues to see that by providing a safe and welcoming place for these “non-jock” athletes to practice their moves, other important, albeit less obvious, benefits arise across the board. Kids of all ages and from a variety of different backgrounds gather here to enjoy their passion. Friendships are made; older kids look out for the younger ones and show them moves; kids are engaged in an outdoor physical activity where screens and phones are put away for the time being. Positive community in the making. No arguments here!

Tyler and Buddy enjoying a father/son moment

Community abounds online, as well. After Tyler’s death, Buddy and Ginny learned even more about the world of skateboarders. In going through their son’s things, they discovered that he was deeply connected to a forum on SLAP magazine which is an online site for skateboarders from around the world. Rusty Berrings, as he was known online, was Tyler’s pen name, so to speak.

Here’s an excerpt from SLAP’s online forum:

RIP Rusty Berrings

November 12, 2015, 05:03:35 PM

And older ‘kid’ sporting Tyler’s artwork

One of slaps most controversial posters passed away last week. He definitely battled some demons, but he was also one of the nicest guys I ever interacted with on here. Some of the greatest posts of all time came from him too. Seems like sometimes he could get on top of things, and at these times his insights into mental illness and skateboarding were brilliant (and a little bit out there). He always had a way of making absurd ideas relatable though. I felt for him a lot and now hoping his family and is handling it okay.

The messages of love and support and the positive impact “Rusty” had on fellow boarders around the world inspired Buddy and Ginny to reach out. Using one of Tyler’s most recent sketches, the couple had t-shirts, hats and stickers made and then sent them to Tyler’s online – and local –  friends around the world.

Tyler’s sketch was made into t-shirt art

“There isn’t a continent on this planet that doesn’t have one of our stickers,” exclaimed Buddy.

Buoyed by this new-found community around the world and the local community back home, Buddy and Ginny hit the ground running and have committed to raising the $200,000 needed to bring the Rusty Berrings Skate Park back to life. Please join them and many others as they invest their time, energy and financial resources towards this revitalized facility which will provide a safe and welcoming place for our youth and young people to engage in healthy physical activity while creating lifelong community connections.

Ginny, wearing Tyler’s artwork, next to a poster of Tyler

Patrick Chikoloma with Lydia Duncan from Norwich painting a mural (and a bit of body painting!) in Chibolya,
Lusaka, Zambia

Over February break, twenty American kids, mostly from the Upper Valley, will spend two weeks in Zambia, developing their circus skills alongside kids from Chibolya, an impoverished section of the Zambian capital of Lukhasa. For many of the kids from the U.S., this will be a return trip after their first journey there last winter.

The seeds were sown for this unlikely pairing of circus-loving kids from far ends of the earth during a snowstorm in New York City on Valentine’s Day of 2014. Norwich resident Brooke Ciardelli, who had recently ended her tenure as Founding Producing and Artistic Director of Northern Stage, was directing for a short play festival in Greenwich Village. When she ducked into a bar to get out of the snow, she bumped into an old friend Manual Bagorro, director of the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA). She had met him back in 2008 when she brought a one-man show originally produced at Northern Stage to HIFA. Over drinks, Bagorro invited her to write and direct the Opening Show for the upcoming festival, which – with 185 artists from 35 countries – is the largest arts festival in sub-Saharan Africa. “I’d just gone freelance with no plan so I was in ‘yes’ mode,” says Ciardelli. Within weeks she headed to Zimbabwe.

Circus Zambia performing on the Lebanon Green

While there, she hit it off with a group of performers from a theater group from Zambia called Barefeet Theatre (including three founding members of what is now Circus Zambia). The founder of Barefeet invited Ciardelli to write and direct a theater production in the fall of 2014, and so she returned.

In the few years since that first visit to Africa, Ciardelli’s relationship with Barefeet Theatre and its members has resulted in many enriching collaborations. When Ciardelli learned that Barefeet Theatre had been invited to perform for the UN in June 2014, she brought them to the U.S. a few days early so they could perform on the Norwich Green on the last day of school, visit classes at Marion Cross, and teach a workshop. Ciardelli also produced a Barefeet show off-Broadway, returned to Lusaka, Zambia to write and direct a Barefeeet production, and brought a one-woman show with DC based dancer/choreographer Princess Mhoon to perform in Zambia as part of the Youth Arts Festival.

Mwansa leading the finale for Norwich Rec Department Summer Circus Camp (Director,
Ted Lawrence)

In the fall of 2015, the founders of what is now Circus Zambia shared with Ciardelli their dream of running a social circus school to help the kids who live in their hometown of Chibolya develop the tools they need for a better life. About 80 percent of the population of Chibolya is younger than 14 years old and most don’t stay in school and instead spend their days on the dusty streets surrounded by crime and drugs.

“Zambian kids are terrific acrobats because they just need their body and empty space. There are no playgrounds, there are no toys. They do street acrobatics because you don’t need anything. They would take a bunch of plastic bags and wrap them into a ball. I’ve seen them use a rubber tire as a mini trampoline,” says Ciardelli.

Lyla Stettenheim, Norwich, learning how Zambian women carry thei r children on their
backs.

“A social circus school focuses on developing social and life skills rather than the tricks,” she explains. “These kids need to learn to become self-advocates, and that takes courage and trust, and a sense that you can actually change your life. The circus part is a conduit. Maybe a few will end up working as circus people but the circus skills build confidence, self-respect and trust, and the ability to stand up in front of someone and perform, to be a child who is given a voice.”

During this conversation, Ciardelli mentioned that the Upper Valley is home to many children who are passionate about learning circus skills, including her own son, William (now age 13) who had taken Ted Lawrence’s Norwich Rec Department summer circus camp. “I somewhat casually said, “Oh! We’ve got a great youth circus program in our town of Norwich – my son has attended for two years – wouldn’t it be great to do an exchange!?”

So, enlisting the help of Lawrence, who also runs Van Lodostov Family Circus, Ciardelli approached other Norwich circus families about the idea of going to Zambia over February vacation, and was met with great enthusiasm. Before departing, Upper Valley families collected donations and each kid brought school supplies, toiletries and gifts for each of their buddy kids. They also gathered circus equipment to use during the exchange and to help start the circus school in Zambia.

Training at the Olympic Youth Development Center in Lusaka, Zambia

Last February break, seven kids from the Upper Valley between the ages of 12 and 18 and four parents joined Ciardelli and Lawrence on the first circus exchange with Circus Zambia and their youth performers. Together the Americans and Zambians created a joint circus and performed four shows, drawing crowds as large as 1000 people.

The kids became good friends during rehearsal, sharing Zambian lunches, including caterpillar, fish head and emu. “They all ate it. All of them,” says Ciardelli of the American kids. “We thought it was important that the American kids had a sense of where the Zambian kids are from,” says Ciardelli. So they organized trips into Chibolya, including home visits with their buddy’s family.

“I don’t think any of us expected our children to embrace this so fully,” says Ciardelli. “There was no hanging back, no struggle to take in this experience. They just sucked it in. You could see these American kids changing in front of your eyes,” she says.

Signe Taylor of Norwich recalls the night she picked up her daughter Lyla Stettenheim, now 16, and her husband Joel, from the Dartmouth Coach after their trip. “She was both really happy to see me and her brother and also a little withdrawn. As we were driving home, she started speaking about her experiences in Zambia. She talked about how [her father and I] have always said that we are privileged and that we live in a wealthy community and that many others in the country and the world don’t have what we are lucky to have. She talked about how those words didn’t mean that much to her but that getting to know the Circus Zambia performers and kids in Lusaka opened her eyes in a very big and real way to some of the inequalities in this world. I think that’s a huge take away…” Lyla will be returning this year, this time with her mother and her 12-year-old brother Soren, who has attended three sessions of Lawrence’s Camp.

All participants on both sides of the exchange learned and grew from the experience. Before the U.S. kids came, the Circus Zambia kids practiced only sporadically and hadn’t been introduced to clowning, juggling, unicycling, or many other circus tricks. They now have circus equipment and have been gathering two afternoons a week and all day on Saturdays, and their skills have improved immensely, says Ciardelli.

And this past October, Ciardelli traveled to Zambia to help Circus Zambia make an offer on permanent building for the circus school, thanks to funds raised in the Upper Valley. “It’s an old disused school with enough outdoor space to put a small-sized circus tent. It has running water and bathrooms that need love, but that, in Zambian context, are terrific,” says Ciardelli. The hope is that it will be a done deal by February.

Having an actual building will allow more children to attend circus training, ensure that they train in a safe environment, and make it possible to expand the hours of training. In addition to the circus training area, the school will include a computer lab, tutoring facilities and library. The plan is that once a child is in the circus program, scholarships will be available to pay for public school fees, books, uniforms and shoes. At the school, children will have access to safe and sanitary bathroom facilities and clean water, which are not currently available in their own section of the city. The school will also have cooking facilities and internet access. Basic life and social skills such as hygiene, communication and sexual education, will be taught.

Circus Zambia on Lake Sunapee, summer 2016

Toward the end of last year’s February exchange the parents of the U.S. kids were so overwhelmed by what they saw that they decided to fund a trip to the U.S. for Circus Zambia. Six Zambians between the ages of 18 and 24 spent the summer in the Upper Valley, doing home stays and observing how the Van Lodostov Family Circus Program is run, so they could bring their knowledge back to Zambia. Three days a week, teachers also helped the young Zambians with English, reading, writing and math, and the Circus Zambia performers did shows and workshops around the Upper Valley.

“Another goal was to expose them to as many other professional circus performers as we could, because many of them had never actually seen a circus,” says Ciardelli. (Circus Zambia is the only circus in the country.) They spent a couple overnights with Bread and Puppet, and they did an immersion with Circus Smirkus when they came through. And Cirque du Soleil invited them to be guests to watch them perform on Broadway.

“We had all the performers over on many evenings and those were just very special summer nights,” says Signe Taylor, whose family hosted two Circus Zambia performers last summer. “They cooked Zambian food, joked, sang. The Circus Zambia performers are among the nicest young men I’ve met! They were polite, enthusiastic, eager to learn, kind and helpful. They were also fantastic role models for our son. I got such a kick out of seeing them all on our sofa playing FIFA on our Xbox, shooting hoops, swimming and teasing each other. It was a very fun summer simply because they were here.”

Even some non-circus siblings who helped with reading and writing this summer will be heading to Zambia this winter. “We will run half the programs at the school and half at other places, so the parents and kids not involved in the circus can work on renovating the school, painting, putting doors on hinges building benches and school desks,” says Ciardelli.

“What I love is that our connection to Circus Zambia both makes the world a smaller place because of our connection to these fantastic young men and also a bigger place because it helps my kids gain a more realistic sense of both the wealth and poverty on our planet,” Taylor. “I can’t imagine anything more important than gaining that broader connection with and understanding of the world.”

“Circus Zambia grabbed my heart and would not let go and I thought maybe some other people would love it but the amount of embrace that has happened from this community is staggering,” says Ciardelli.

“Upper Valley kids are worrying about, ‘how do I find $100 so one of these Zambian kids can go to school for a year?’ They are organizing bake sales and circus clubs and asking for more chores to earn money to purchase building supplies to renovate the school in Chibolya,” says Ciardelli.

“It’s citizenship and true cultural diplomacy at its best,” she adds. “World leaders need to do their part but really the power is in what you are seeing these kids do. These are the values of the Upper Valley, and I’ve not seen it more potently illustrated than with these kids. This is the future.”