The Bloomingdale Community History Project is a collaborative documentation which features the stories of long-time neighborhood residents. The first step has begun with 10 discussion/interviews with community residents, documenting the lives and thoughts of the historical neighborhood. These video and audio discussions will form the basis of the first chapter of a community documentary. The documentary will be available for neighborhood screenings and will be part of an intitial web site, dedicated to preserving the stories and memories of the Bloomingdale community.
The not-for-profit project was created by Thomas W. Campbell
and is supported by Peter Arndtsen and the Columbus-Amsterdam
BID. Both are long-time members of the community. They are volunteering
their time and resources for the first documentary project - “10 neighborhood
discussions”. They hope to raise support and money for the continuation
and development of the Bloomingdale History Project, including community
training in oral history/documentary production.
How can this help the community?
The community is a multi-generational neighborhood of people from all walks
of life. One of the most important tasks for any community is to bring people
together. The history project will hold neighborhood screenings of the work
as it is edited, encouraging people to celebrate their lives and their own
history. We hope to add to the dialogue of the community, raising self-awareness
and the value of communication and collaboration in regards to the rich and
historic nature of the Bloomingdale community.
What we hope to accomplish.
After completing the initial 10 discussion/interviews, we hope to develop
the Bloomingdale History Project into an -going documentation of the people
and history of the neighborhood, preserving stories and memories. Through
the production of video documentaries and the continuous development of a
web site - the educational and historical nature of the work will evolve.
And there is lots of work to do - the neighborhood has been around for over
100 years! The second phase of the project will involve hiring community
artists to train the skills of documentary production techniques to local
students and residents. In turn the students will become part of the documenting
of the Bloomingdale communitie’s rich and evolving history.
Contact Thomas
W, Campbell
Contact Peter Arndtsen
Download pdf of this draft (v2b)
