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The Ruggles Center, in collaboration with Grow Food Northampton, recently hosted approximately 160 fifth graders from Northampton’s four elementary schools. We also led tours of high school students from Springfield’s SciTech and Central High Schools, as well as Northampton High School. Over a series of crisp fall mornings, the 5th graders walked between the Sojourner Truth statue, by her house on Park St., through the historic Park St. Cemetery, and down Meadow St., stopping at the Hill-Ross Homestead, finishing at the Lydia Maria Child garden at Grow Food. The high school visitors were also able to spend time at the DRC museum.

Fifth grade teachers had received a packet of readings, designed for elementary students, based on the DRC website. Tom Golscheider also made some introductory visits to the high schools, and was able to use his interactive curriculum with the Northampton students. Many of the students were familiar with David Ruggles and Sojourner Truth, as well as our local Underground Railroad history. In a cemetery scavenger hunt, they learned about African American community members that were buried there, such as Basil Dorsey, Sarah Askin, Henry Anthony, Laura Knowles Washington and George Hoderstia. In the garden, they pulled out sugar beets and worked with flax stalks, pulling out the strong silky threads, and learned about David and Lydia Maria Child and the free produce movement.

Our team – Tom Goldscheider, Kim Gerould, Kevin McQuillan and Irene Rosenthal, of the Ruggles Center, and Ellena Baum of Grow Food – agreed that this collaboration was hopefully only the beginning of working together to share our history with more students and their teachers.