FBS Local History Projects
The Foundation is proud to partner with the Beacon City School District and local organizations working to research and preserve our local history.
In the past two years, FBS has helped facilitate two exciting local history projects in collaboration with BCSD teachers, administrators, students, and local history groups.
Learning about local history helps Beacon’s students develop vital vocational skills, such as how to interview someone and how to conduct primary and secondary research. It also helps students cultivate a deeper connection with the place they call home and strengthens their role as citizens, locally, nationally and globally.
Read on to learn about our first two local history initiatives. If you’d like to support more work like this, please consider making a donation today. Thank you!
JV Forrestal ‘History of the Bell’ Film
Ms. Fisher’s 5th Grade Class of 2023, JV Forrestal Elementary School
With guidance from their teacher, local professional filmmakers, Foundation volunteers, and local history experts, 5th graders at JV Forrestal researched the storied history of their school bell and helped make a short film about it.
The project, funded in part by a City of Beacon Community Funding Grant, included a field trip to the Beacon Historical Society, and classroom research and filmmaking sessions. Students worked with Beacon filmmaker, Ana Joanes, on the stages of making a documentary and how to tell a story from their research. Students learned about selecting archival material for film footage, conducting interviews, and developing a narration.
Thank you to everyone involved in this exciting project. We hope you enjoy the film!
The Rise Up Project at Beacon High School
An Oral History of Beacon’s Black Communities
Thank you to everyone who attended the FILM PREMIERE on Wednesday December 6! It was wonderful to share this incredible community-made film!
By popular demand, there are three more community screenings around Beacon coming up in February 2024.. To register for one of the film screenings, please click here.
PLEASE NOTE: THE FEB 13 SCREENING HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO THE WINTER STORM
Saturday Feb 24, 2:00 pm - St. Andrew and St. Luke’s Church (15 South Ave.)
Tuesday Feb 27, 6:00 pm - Beacon High School / Seeger Theater
Thursday Feb 29, 6:00 pm - Howland Public Library (Q&A to follow)
About the Film
This project involved a unique community collaboration that brought together residents young and old to record and preserve the lived experiences of Beacon’s Black communities during the 20th century.
A team of Beacon High School students and their faculty advisor worked with volunteers from the Rise Up Project, the Foundation, and local filmmakers and history experts to conduct research, interview senior citizens, and create a film, called Lines of Demarcation.
The project was spearheaded by the Rise Up Project, a congregational ministry of St. Andrew and St. Luke Episcopal Church, and supported by the Foundation for Beacon Schools, the Beacon City School District, the City of Beacon’s Community Funding Grant Program, and local history organizations and partners.
We were fortunate that this project coincided with another community collaboration in 2023 around the history of Beacon’s historic West End neighborhood. Partner organizations, including The Beacon Historical Society, The Howland Public Library, I Am Beacon, and the HIghlands Current, provided enormous support for the film, and we are excited to show the film at the same time that the West End History exhibits are being shown in Beacon.
