Our Hometown
Plymouth | A Commitment of Caring
Clip | 5m 1sVideo has Closed Captions
Jessica Dutille talks about re-building community, after the pandemic changed the world.
Jessica Dutille talks about re-building community, after the pandemic changed the world.
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Our Hometown is a local public television program presented by NHPBS
Our Hometown
Plymouth | A Commitment of Caring
Clip | 5m 1sVideo has Closed Captions
Jessica Dutille talks about re-building community, after the pandemic changed the world.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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And for me, the most memorable of our initiatives, our community wide efforts came during the Covid 19 pandemic, and I remember having a campus wide meeting in the beginning of March 2020.
We were told that we were gonna go home for about two weeks and let the pandemic play out, and of course, we know how that played out.
We were home for way longer than two weeks.
Lockdown lasted for months.
It was a time of collective grief, not only because of the lives lost, but because of the sense of our day to day daily routines.
Our sense of normalcy was lost and a time of great physical disconnection.
we over that summer, were invited by President Donald Burks of Plymouth State to form a task force looking at how do we reopen the university come fall.
And under that task force was 11 working groups looking at the different various aspects of what it would take to open the university and welcome back our students.
and really collaborating with the broader community and looking at how are we going to garner that commitment to one another to make sure it's safe to bring the students back to to Plymouth?
And on that working group were represented representatives from not just Plymouth State, of course, faculty, staff, students, alumni, but also the Town of Plymouth Selectboard, business leaders, organizational leaders.
And we had some really important conversations, real honest dialog, and we shared collective concerns.
Of course, everyone from the PSU side, we're also community members of Plymouth at that time, we didn't see significant Covid cases in our community.
In fact, we didn't even have one.
And so there was an undercurrent of fear and worry about what does it mean to bring students back from not only throughout the country, but throughout the world?
As Covid was sweeping the globe.
And we knew that we had to really focus on messaging around our commitment and care to the community and to one another.
And one of our faculty members racial lines, dear friend of mine had the idea of how could we visually represent this commitment of care to one another, and that is how the Community of Caring Flags project was born.
So we found recycled bits of material.
We cut them into rectangles and we bought some fabric markers.
We had different sites throughout Main Street and local businesses, of course throughout campus, where community members could come and visually reflect their feelings around Covid.
Messages of care and concern and worry and hope.
And it was incredibly moving.
And so this is one of my favorite flags.
It said I miss seeing my occasional friends.
And I thought, you know, the little things we took for granted, the times that we're in the supermarket.
And we passed by an acquaintance and we could just chat and connect and share a hug and a moment when we're walking on Main Street, those occasional friends.
And so, we gathered all those messages and we literally and figuratively stitch all of those reflections, all those messages of care and concern and hope together.
And then we hung those flags from lampposts to lampposts through Main Street throughout our campus.
And as we were going through this challenging time, it was a visual reflection that we are interconnected, that we needed each other.
I think when times are going well, it's easy to say we're connected, we care about one another, but when we are under a challenge and stress, that's when I think the true colors and the true nature of a connected community come to light.
And so for me at least, this project represented the best of Plymouth.
And this is a place of love and belonging.
And I couldn't imagine raising my kids any place but here
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Clip | 3m 41s | Jim Lurie tells us how in 1917, his grandfather travelled from Minsk, Russia, across Siberia. (3m 41s)
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Plymouth | A Commitment of Caring
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Clip | 5m 1s | Jessica Dutille talks about re-building community, after the pandemic changed the world. (5m 1s)
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Clip | 4m 16s | Yvonne recalls growing up in Berlin, and speaking two languages in school. (4m 16s)
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Clip | 6m 41s | Andre speaks to us about growing up in Berlin. (6m 41s)
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Clip | 12m 40s | Walter tells us about Berlin's Skier/Soldier, Paul Petersen, and a love story. (12m 40s)
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Clip | 3m 36s | Roland talks about working in every aspect of the paper industry, over 4+ decades. (3m 36s)
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Clip | 4m 19s | Renney tells a couple of great stories about growing up in Berlin. (4m 19s)
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Clip | 4m 24s | Olive speaks about growing up in Berlin, in a family that owned Bisson's Sugar House. (4m 24s)
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Clip | 3m 5s | Lorna recalls heading into Berlin on Friday nights, for shopping & meeting up with friends (3m 5s)
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Clip | 3m 54s | Moving to Berlin was a dream come true for Haven, as he loved working in the woods. (3m 54s)
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Clip | 1m 21s | A true Downeaster doesn't use any more words than need be. (1m 21s)
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Clip | 1m 16s | You really have to keep an eye on what the neighbors are doing. (1m 16s)
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Clip | 3m | She has made it her mission to help other immigrants, arriving in Nashua. (3m)
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Clip | 2m 51s | He recalls how welcoming & helpful the people of Nashua were when he first arrived. (2m 51s)
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Clip | 2m | Tony Courounis edited by Jacob Whelan (2m)
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Nashua | Student Filmmaker Series: Nathan Burns/Carolyn Byrn
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Our Hometown is a local public television program presented by NHPBS