Two of the co-founders of Cruces Creatives are old classmates of mine. They just put me in touch with the director of CommunityShare, a nonprofit they’re partnering with and that is now working with West Clermont School District. That director, Josh Schachter, sounded interested in ways that Hive13 and their work in Cincinnati could support each other.
Who is interested in talking with him about this? If a few people are, I can go about setting up a Zoom call with him. I could also pass his email address along for an email thread.
To quote parts of his messages to me:
I am the director of the nonprofit CommunityShare and we have been
partnering with Cruces Creatives in Las Cruces to engage community professionals/makers in real-world learning experiences with students and teachers. It has been an awesome partnership! I mentioned to Pat that we are now working with West Clermont School District in Cincinnati and he said that you would be great to connect with. Perhaps there are ways your amazing makerspace work and our work in Cincinnati could support each other.Let me know if/when might be a good time to hop on a Zoom.
In regard to your questions:
- The interactions can vary from a one-time event to working on a maker-related project over several sessions with students and educators. Here is an article that describes some of the maker projects Pat and his team have been doing in Las Cruces.
- Areas of need vary greatly
It would be probably easiest to explain how we work if we did a Zoom session with those interested and I can show them the online platform we developed. Basically community members/partners, like your staff, would create a profile on the platform and then an educator would reach out if their project needs matched a particular community member’s skills and experiences. We have a 4min video that shows the concept: CommunityShare Intro Video on Vimeo.
Let me know if you need more info. We could also set up a time for your team to talk to the Cruces Creatives staff as they can explain what it is like from a maker space perspective.