The Big Read

The Big Read is an initiative funded by the National Endowment of the Arts in partnership with the Museum and Library Services desgined to revitalize the role of Literature in American culture and bring the transformative power of literature into the lives of its citizens. This year, Jump Street slected The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. 

The photo above is from Jump Street's Funeral for Words written and directed by Lenwood O. Sloan as the 2012 Big Read Closing Event. This event featured actors, musicians and dancers in period costumes celebrating the various cultures in Mark Twain's novel. The players brought to life the time of Tom Sawyer and the words that are so often controversial and banned in the modern world. The actors took these words and "put them to rest" along the banks of the Susquehanna River in the style of a New Orleans Funeral.

Pennsylvania Past Players/100 Voices

A living history and animating democracy project that earned Jump Street's Executive Director, Bob Welsh, the 2009 Governor's Keystone Award for Innovation. The project engages students in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, with a minimum of 3.3 GPA in a year-long intake, training and field pilot for a new approach to arts based workforce development.

The 100 Voices participants are interpreting 100 stories, researched in conjunction with the National Archives and Penn State University, of free and freed African American soldiers from the Civil War period. The 100 Voices will appear in school classrooms, tourism events and Civil War 150 events. Their acting training, provided by Lincoln Center Directing Fellow, Lenwood Sloan and Nancy Hasty, as well as their training in civic engagement by Barbara Schaffer Bacon of Americans for the Arts will enable Jump Street to assign them as docents, as well as in Arts in Education and art infusion modalities.

Urban Terrace

The Jump Street Urban Terrace is an innovative gardening project with several overlapping layers, including the greening of a semi-public space, green technology, food access and workforce development, all manifested at Linden Terrace Apartments, at 1201 North Front Street in Harrisburg. Because Linden Terrace has mostly elderly residents and also residents with low incomes, placing the garden beds here will expand access to gardening and fresh food. Through wheelchair-accessible garden beds, gardeners in wheelchairs and those with limited ability to bend can tend plants and enjoy fresh food. For some, this may be an opportunity to re-connect with a past-time, while for others it may be an adventure.

PA Hallowed Ground Project

Roll Your Sleeves Up and Put Your Hands in History 

This program is an outgrowth of our Living History and Service Learning portfolios. Throughout June and July 2012, colleagues, collaborators and communities will conduct conservation work days throughout Central Pennsylvania. The work is designed to provide continuity of support for the caretakers of these venues and structure a case study and best practices "cook book" to provide to the other sites in the project. Collaborating sites include: Bucktoe Creek Cemetery; Conestoga Cemetery in Lancaster; East Fallowfield Cemetery; Lincoln Cemetery in Mechanicsburg; Locust Grove Cemetery in Shippensburg; Midland Cemetery in Steelton and Freedom HillCemetery in McConnellsburg and Lincoln Cemtery in Penbrook.