BIDDEFORD — On Thursday, Biddeford High School students in one of Carolyn Gosselin’s English classes were learning how to facilitate group meetings. The students, all seniors, are working with the downtown revitalization organization, the Heart of Biddeford, to get community feedback that will provide input for a master plan to help guide the redevelopment of the city center.
“I think it’s a good project,” said Nate Lessard, one of Gosselin’s students. “Our downtown is lacking in life. I’ve wished I could get more out of the town.”
“I think it’s cool we get to have our say,” said classmate Destinee Cyr. She said she thinks it is important to have student input at the meetings, which will be held specifically for them.
Holli Andrews, an intern from the Muskie School of Public Service who is working with the Heart of Biddeford on the downtown master plan, said the organization will be holding several community meetings at private residences throughout April and May, culminating in a large public meeting in June.
The meetings are designed to get input from the community so that the views of residents ”“ not just those of city officials and business interests ”“ are represented in the downtown master plan, which is being paid for by an Orton Family Heart & Soul grant.
Andrews is working with Gosselin’s students to get their input. Her work with the BHS students, she said, is the first she’s aware of that students have had a voice in developing a master plan for their community.
“You guys are the first,” Andrews told the class. “You’re cutting new ground.”
“It’s a major opportunity,” said Gosselin. “To represent youth culture in a master planning process is unheard of.”
In November, said Gosselin, she started collaborating with the Heart of Biddeford. She said the collaboration fits into the English curriculum, which recently added a community component.
In addition to holding student meetings to get young people’s input about how Biddeford’s downtown should grow, the students have been collecting stories about the city, its past and what others would like to see in the community.
They’ve been using digital video to collect these stories, said Gosselin, and each of the students will create a video mini-documentary using the interviews they’ve conducted.
“It fits perfectly (into the course) to have students in the community, collecting stories and fine-tuning their media literacy skills,” she said.
Even when the master plan is completed, which should be by the end of the year, Gosselin said she plans to continue the digital storytelling aspect of the project.
“It’s never going to end,” she said.
Gosselin said she hopes that the students’ stories will be showcased in a kiosk or exhibit.
One of the students in Gosselin’s class is Sarah Martel, who is also an intern at the Heart of Biddeford and a student representative on the organization’s master plan steering committee.
From interviewing her siblings and talking to other young people, Martel said she already has some ideas about how the downtown could be developed to attract more people.
Teen dances, ice cream shops and businesses to attract families were some ideas.
To appeal to teens, businesses need to be “cost efficient,” said Martel, because “teens don’t have a lot of money.”
More parking was another thought.
“My big thing is parking,” she said, “teens aren’t good at parallel parking.”
More advertising about what businesses and events are already in the area is an idea that doesn’t have to wait for the creation of a master plan, said Martel.
Before interning with the Heart of Biddeford, she said, “I didn’t know about all the stores down there. If there was more publicity, people would go downtown now.”
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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