The Heart of the Matter

Since the last blog post, I began a Heritage Preservation Masters program at Georgia State and resigned from my position as Program Director of the Stewart Center in order to do so.  Because of my love for the Stewart Center and the crucial role it played in unearthing my excitement for history, preservation, and research, I have continued researching its history as a part of my studies.  I could not fathom abandoning the information and stories I had acquired through my research over the past few years--I wanted to preserve and share it in a form that would be accessible to future generations of APSC family.
 
This spring when I decided to become a full time student, I talked to my advisor about taking a "Directed Readings" course--which basically entails conducting an independent research project as an elective, under my advisors supervision.  After he approved my proposal to write a comprehensive history of the Stewart Center, I knew that I had the necessary pressure and supervision to make sure the project became a reality.  While I wont bore you with all the details of the research and writing I have done this summer--believe me when I say I have been busy :)

I met with my advisor a few weeks ago to go over the first draft of the history.  While the draft was a start, it has a long ways to go.  As my advisor said and my professor echoed, the scope of this project is much larger than can be completed this summer.  (100 years is a lot to cover!)  I plan to incorporate the project into several other courses, including my oral history class this fall, and continue working on it independently.

One of the most difficult parts of the project, so far, has not been researching or describing events that occurred at the Center.  The difficulty has been in describing the "heart" of the Stewart Center--the spirit of the place that has come to be so important to me.  In fact, that was my advisors main critique--that while I had described a lot of people and events, I had not talked about the Center as its own being.

A few days ago, I interviewed one of the current Stewart Center board members, Esther Grissom.  When I asked her about her hopes for the Center moving forward, one of the things that she hoped for was that the Center would continue providing the Youth with opportunities for exposure to the world outside Reynoldstown.  I was caught off guard by the mention of this special group of teenagers, and tears started streaming down my face.  As I struggled to take notes through blurry eyes, all I could think about was the many quirks and qualities that I loved in those teenagers, and how important it was to me that they find happiness and success (however they choose to define it).       

I realized that for me, that feeling, that desire, is the heart of the Stewart Center....loving and accepting people as they are, championing one anothers hopes and dreams, and working together to achieve every individual's definition of "success."