BPS Sees Successful Community Resource Fair
Bourne Public Schools hosted a successful kickoff event for its new Building Bridges initiative last Thursday, September 29, when members of the community were invited to convene at Bourne Intermediate School for a community resource fair.
Lisa Dix, elementary curriculum director for BPS, is spearheading the initiative, drawing inspiration from a previous incarnation of the program that she ran at the Sippican School in Marion. Now in her fourth year here, Ms. Dix said she is proud to bring the initiative to BPS and hopes to increase engagement between the schools and the community at large.
Last week’s community resource fair featured dozens of organizations from Cape Cod and beyond, each with its own table and resource materials. Among the many organizations present at the event were Massachusetts Maritime Academy, the Bourne Fire and Police departments, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cape Cod and the Islands, and the Bourne Recreation Department.
Different organizations offered different things, Ms. Dix said. For example, the Bourne police had backpacks and school supplies galore for families and children to take; Bourne Nutrition offered smoothie and protein bite samples; and the Barnstable County Human Rights Commission came with materials and resources to inform community members about clothing, food, housing and job assistance.
“We had over 50 tables,” Ms. Dix said. “It was amazing.”
Members of the Wampanoag Tribe were also in attendance, which Ms. Dix said will dovetail into an agreement with the tribe to educate Bourne’s 3rd grade students on local tribes.
“Basically, the history standards [for grade 3] are all around Massachusetts; our home and what better way than to connect with the true natives of the commonwealth,” Ms. Dix said.
The tables were spread across the ground floor of the intermediate school, giving families the opportunity to browse at their leisure without being overcrowded in one room. After visiting a table, attendees would be given a ticket, which could then be filled out and submitted for one of the more than two dozen donated raffle prizes that had been set up in the lobby.
While she had been nervous about attendance prior to the event, Ms. Dix said she is pleased with how the community resource fair was received by the community and looks forward to future events.
“I think we had the perfect amount [of people] for the first go-around,” she said. “Now, with word of mouth, everyone’s going to understand exactly what that means and how it relates to our community at large. I was thrilled with the way it came out. There are so many great outcomes as a result of just this one event, so I’m really excited.”
Ms. Dix is working with Bourne Public Schools Superintendent Kerri Anne Quinlan-Zhou on planning future events for the Building Bridges initiative. Dr. Zhou, Ms. Dix said, hopes to start doing “Coffee Talks and Canal Walks,” in which she plans to extend invitations to anybody in the community—particularly parents of local students—to join her for coffee talks and canal walks. Additional events on the horizon for the program include a guest speaker series and, thanks to the success of the first one, a second annual community resource fair.
“[Groups and attendees] just kept coming and thanking me for pulling the event together and asking, ‘This is an annual thing, right? We’re doing this again next year, right?’” Ms. Dix said. “The atmosphere was really magical.”
A short video on the community resource fair is available through Bourne Community Television. It can be viewed online on Channel 13.
Ms. Dix is currently working on booking a guest speaker in November from the Massachusetts Partnerships For Youth that will focus on child anxiety and school performance. The talk will be over Zoom, she said. More information will be released in the coming weeks.