The Beaufort Three-Century Project (B3C), throughout 2010, will sponsor monthly events on topics that give a historical perspective of “looking back” while creating a community dialogue about the future. B3C hosted the first of 11 topic-based community forums on Thursday, February 18, in the MacLean Hall auditorium (Building 12) at the Technical College of the Lowcountry, 921 Ribaut Road, Beaufort. The February forum, part of the year-long Ancestors to Future Generations: Look Back, Look Forward Beaufort project, focused on “Commerce: Business and Industry” and was free and open to the public.
Each forum may take a different approach to the topic including panels, films, and other media to spur thinking and creativity from the audience about key questions such as: What is important from our past to remember, preserve, and honor? What do we value as Beaufortonians? What do we want Beaufort to be in the future?
Jeff Kidd, editor of the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet, serves as moderator.
“The forums are a good way for people who are new to the community to learn about different aspects of Beaufort and put things in perspective in their new home. They are also an important vehicle for long-time residents to contribute historical context and bring the ‘Beaufort’ way into the conversation,” said B3C project coordinator Deborah Johnson. “From the very beginning of the Beaufort Three-Century Project, we knew this last year must also focus on the future. The forum concept was deemed to be an appropriate mechanism for engaging people in a dialogue on topics that will result in an end-of-the-year wrap up session and values-based vision which B3C will hand off to the City of Beaufort on January 17, 2011 as part of its tricentennial celebration,” she said.
“There could not be a more fitting time to take what we’ve learned about our history and apply it to a concept of what we hope future generations will look back on as a worthy beginning of the city’s fourth century,” said Johnson.
Future forums are tentatively scheduled on the third Thursday of each month throughout 2010, with the exception of July, which is the fourth Thursday, and will include:
March 18, 2010: Religion & Spiritual Life
April 15, 2010: Environment
May 20, 2010: Arts
June 17, 2010: Health & Safety
July 22, 2010: Recreation
August 19, 2010: Education
September 16, 2010: Communications
October 21, 2010: Neighbors & Neighborhoods
November 18, 2010: Government & Military
December 16, 2010: Wrap-Up Session
This project is sponsored in part by The Humanities Council SC, a program of the National Endowment of the Humanities.
For more information about the Beaufort Three-Century Project call 489-1711; e-mail djohnson@islc.net; or visit www.beaufortthreecentury.org.
Mission: In recognition of the 300th anniversary of the City of Beaufort’s charter, the Beaufort Three-Century Project taps our community’s cultural memory through a three-year process of exploration, studies, and special events that honor the past to better chart the future, culminating with the tricentennial celebration on January 17, 2011.
