{"id":9558,"date":"2009-03-23T10:12:02","date_gmt":"2009-03-23T14:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bridge.batesmaine.net\/?p=9558"},"modified":"2023-12-15T12:50:48","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T17:50:48","slug":"documentary-by-saddlemire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2009\/03\/23\/documentary-by-saddlemire\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates to screen 'Visible Community' documentary by Saddlemire '05"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bates<\/a><\/p>\n

Bates College graduate’s documentary about a citizen response to a controversial construction proposal in Lewiston will be screened at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, in Bates College’s Pettengill Hall, Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).<\/p>\n

Presented by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships<\/a> at Bates, the screening of “Neighbor by Neighbor: Mobilizing an Invisible Community in Lewiston, Maine” is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6202.<\/p>\n

Created by Craig Saddlemire<\/a>, a Lewiston resident and member of the Bates class of 2005, the film follows the response to the 2004 Heritage Initiative, the city of Lewiston’s plan to build a four-lane boulevard through a low-income downtown neighborhood. The project would have displaced 850 residents and destroyed playgrounds, vegetable gardens and historic buildings.<\/p>\n

Residents of the neighborhood, supported by Bates student organizations, organized the Visible Community Initiative and halted the construction project.<\/p>\n

Saddlemire became involved with the project when members of the Visible Community wanted raw video footage to serve as a record of the group.<\/p>\n

The film documents a significant period in Lewiston’s history, depicting how the town dealt with urban revitalization during a depressed economy. It provides not only a record of the work of the Visible Community, but also a visual chronicle of changes in the neighborhood through the past five years.<\/p>\n

“Once I started videotaping for the group, I never stopped,” says Saddlemire, who now has his own film production company, Round Point Movies<\/a>. “This movie documents how hard some of the residents downtown have worked to make good lives for themselves in this neighborhood, and how much a misguided development plan can affect their lives.”<\/p>\n

After his senior year at Bates, Saddlemire settled in downtown Lewiston and took a more active role in the initiative. The idea for a documentary developed when the Visible Community applied for a grant from the Self-Development of People Fund to develop a master plan for downtown Lewiston, created by the residents.<\/p>\n

The group used grant money to document the planning process and edit other footage into a comprehensive history of the work the Visible Community had done.<\/p>\n

After the Heritage Initiative was defeated, the organization lobbied to replace a closed city park, held demonstrations and eventually authored its own master plan for downtown Lewiston.<\/p>\n

“Through the film, current students will be able to see how Bates students played a supportive role to the downtown residents, who in turn really impacted the Bates students that were involved,” says Saddlemire. The Visible Community, he says, effectively brought town and gown closer.<\/p>\n

“The film demonstrates that there’s a lot to learn about the world beyond academia, and you can do that by just stepping off campus,” says Saddlemire. “People have misconceptions about downtown Lewiston, and I think seeing the people in this film tell their story will make people who hold those misperceptions think twice.”<\/p>\n

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships leads Bates’ efforts in community involvement, including programs in service-learning, community volunteerism and environmental stewardship. The center works with community partners to meet community needs and, in the process, to integrate civic engagement with the Bates educational experience.<\/p>\n

-Becca Chacko ’10, Office of Communications and Media Relations <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bates College graduate’s documentary about a citizen response to a controversial construction proposal in Lewiston will be screened at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, in Bates College’s Pettengill Hall, Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,133,31,220],"tags":[2620,138,4087,10830],"class_list":["post-9558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-creativity","category-lewiston-auburn","category-service","tag-craig-saddlemire","tag-education","tag-harward-center-for-community-partnerships","tag-lewiston-auburn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9558"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159578,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9558\/revisions\/159578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}