“The CCLC has a community of gifted educators and talented local artisans who can make a difference in the lives of the students I am losing. I feel strongly that the CCLC will be utilized by our K-12 school and that most of the other schools would also jump on board to give their students enriching experiences that will last a life time and here are some examples.”

“Several students were able to go on a wilderness canoeing expedition to learn the natural and social history of their surroundings. There is no other educational center in our area that is able to provide this kind of opportunity for our students. There were other students in our school that benefited from a variety of classes held at the CCLC, including: timber-frame construction, pottery, and a marine biology class. The CCLC provides educational experiences that are life changing. I am convinced they are the only resource available to Lubec Consolidated School that can provide the alternative educational experiences desperately needed by our students.”
Scott K. Porter
Superintendent, MSAD #19

“Every so often an idea, a person, an experience, a conversation comes your way that you know down deep is going to change you-is already changing you-and is linking you to something that will make a difference in lives. More than that it also has a feeling of déjà vu surrounding it which connects it to most everything that you’ve known to be true at every level, from the spiritual and philosophical to the essential and everyday realities of a particular place and time and population. I feel that way about the folks who have conceived the Cobscook Community Learning Center. Everything I know about it-the underlying value assumptions, the project’s philosophy, the process of its evolution, the people who embody it and what it proposes to be and do feels dead-on authentic, accurate, and true.”

“The commitment the CCLC has made to provide learners of all ages access to the arts and experiential education will fill a void in that part of the world. The values and goals I most admire are those in which they are determined to structure a climate in which people will find and create opportunities to be engaged, supported, recognized, and encouraged. They know that if that happens people will flourish. When it doesn’t happen there is a terrible toll extracted from the souls of our young and old.”
Gary A. DeLong
Executive Director
Maine Sea Coast Missionary Society

“The Native American community, specifically the Passamaquoddy Tribe, of Cobscook Bay area in eastern Maine, share much with the CCLC. The fact that we have such a common and compatible philosophy explains why there are several Tribal members active in the dream of establishing a Learning Center where all will be welcome and all will have many opportunities to share and contribute to a more diverse Cobscook region.”

“CCLC is committed to the concept of creating “Sacred Spaces” where human beings can discover the best of themselves from actively embracing differences as a cornerstone of our mutual learning experience.”
Wayne A. Newell, M.Ed.
Dir. Bilingual/Bicultural Programs
Motahkmiqewi Skulhawossol

“You asked me to tell you about my impression of the week I spent teaching song writing for the Cobscook Gathering. It was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had.”

“I had an age range from high school freshman up through older adult. I couldn’t have asked for a better group. The journey from nine very diverse individuals to a cohesive, supportive group was remarkable to witness. Travis came looking for high school credit and came away with a song and I think he had a good time to boot. And credit.”

“I’m grateful to the CCLC for providing such a wonderful springboard to what I hope will be a continuing and thriving organization. I have come to a deeper understanding of what the CCLC is trying to accomplish. I watched adults find pieces of themselves that they thought were missing. I watched young people, accustomed to the good and bad of public education, realizing that they were not going to be accused of some wrong doing, but coming to trust and revel in a different approach. I watched different age groups and different cultures assist each other in mutual respect. I watched myself being both a teacher and a student.”
Anne Dodson
Musician/Song Writer
Beech Hill Music

“Drawing on over thirty years of involvement with community-based initiatives, as well as academic study in adult and community education, I am struck by the clarity and vitality of CCLC’s rare combination of vision and practical capacities for organization and action, and know that they will do a superb job with the activity they describe.”

“The CCLC is important for those of us beyond the Cobscook region who look to initiatives of this kind for inspiration as well as substantive learning.”
Patricia Foster Haines
Director, Level Green Associates
Department of Education
Cornell University

February 12, 2002

Libra Foundation
Attention: Elizabeth C. Flaherty
Three Canal Plaza
P. O. Box 7516-DTS
Portland, ME 04112-8516

Dear Ms. Flaherty:

I believe that the Cobscook Community Learning Center has the potential of becoming a model program of great significance. If I am correct, people who want to create vibrant, collaborative learning communities for nurturing the development of both individuals and the broader society will be looking to CCLC for inspiration and guidance for years to come.

Why do I say this? CCLC embraces a remarkable number of the qualities that enabled earlier institutions to become powerful forces for transformation as the Danish Folk School movement, Jane Addam's Hull House, and Miles Horton's Highlander Folk School. In each of these cases, people from all segments of the society were supported to grapple with the issues that were pulling their society apart. In each case they found new and innovative ways of building a more workable and just society. Each has had a profound influence on people longing to build a more deeply democratic society.

What does CCLC have in common with these illustrious institutions? They each began by creating what I call a “public homeplace,” a space where diverse groups of people are made to feel truly welcomed and at home. Feeling at home, people begin to tell their stories, they listen to one and another with real care. People feel heard—often for the first time. Sympathetic understanding spreads out over the land. The conversations grow deeper and deeper.
Even though the Institute CCLC sponsored last summer was held in a rough and ready field camp, the sense of welcome and generosity was so pervasive everyone came to feel very much at home. I can only imagine what it will be like when CCLC gets to build a homeplace of its own design.
The founders of all these earlier institutions, like Alan Furth, are bridge builders. The kinds of bridges that Alan and his forbearers build are many. First and foremost, they are always bringing people together from vastly different walks of life. They take special care to include those who are routinely excluded and stand silenced in the margins of the community.
Last summer CCLC brought together all segments of the community living around Cobscook Bay, including people trying to survive ways of living that are no longer sustained: members of the Passamaquoddy tribe and neighbors struggling to wrestle a living from the land and the sea.
These bridge builders never see people at the margins as clients to be serviced or as patients who should be treated and hopefully cured. Instead, they are viewed as experts who have enormous knowledge about some of the problems that plague the society. These experts are neighbors, friends, and colleagues whose knowledge would be invaluable in any collaborative effort to solve the problems facing them and the bay.
These bridge builders also build spans that link the past with the future. While all of these learning communities try to bring futures into being that few have even imagined before, they all prize the past. Folkways and folk arts are revived and studied. People sing all the old songs; they dance as their ancestors once danced. Old stories are retold. People come to see their connections with the past more clearly. Finding the ground they are actually standing on, people become more sure-footed as they step out into the future.
Dancing ancient dances with the Passamaquoddy people at the Institute last summer was a profound experience for everyone. This was especially true for those of us steeped in a culture that prizes the individual over the community. We got a real glimpse at how powerful and nurturing a community can be for each individual involved.
Hearing voices one has never heard before can be an electric experience—as everyone who attended CCLC’s Institute last summer can testify. We found ourselves listening to one and another with the greatest of care. We begin to see ourselves from new angles of vision. We also got a much larger picture of the world we live in. We could see the gaps and cleavages that separate people and hold them down. We could also see connections that could bring people together and strengthen the whole. When we left the Bay at the end of the Institute we were certain that the process there—if sustained over the long haul—could transform the people, the region, and even the larger society.
I believe the Cobscook Community Learning Center will become an important model for still another reason. Like its predecessors, CCLC has situated itself near a fault line that has been largely ignored. Late in the 18th Century Jane Addams placed Hull House in the heart of Chicago, swirling with the devastation caused by the earliest waves of industrialization and urbanization. Addams was certain that if the immigrants in her neighborhood were really heard, most of these problems could be solved and the whole society would become more deeply democratic. Many in the nation became sympathetic. Much of what she hoped for did come to pass.
The Highlander Folk School situated itself at the Northern edge of the American South, mired in a feudal way of life and a belief that blacks were inferior beings unfit to participate in civilized society. Being the only place in the South where whites and blacks could meet and work together, Highlander helped usher in the civil rights movement that transformed the nation. Again, many pressing problems were solved and the society became more deeply democratic.
CCLC has situated itself on a beautiful bay. It is a perfect place for a public homeplace as the bay also sits on important fault lines. Participants can not help but imagine the devastation that the death of the oceans is causing the whole world; participants can not help but think of the devastation native peoples everywhere have suffered when colonists drove them from their lands.
Cobscook Bay is a place of such wonder large numbers of people will be drawn to the struggle for years to come if—and only if--there is a public homeplace where they can gather, feel at home, and continue the conversation.
I urge you to support this marvelous project.

Sincerely,

Mary Field Belenky, Ed.D.
Associate Research Professor