The Huckleberry Hill Project

This fall I am launching The Huckleberry Hill Project.  It is an experiential learning project in an inspirational  environment, where children of different ages get to launch big project ideas with the full support of our parent body and outside experts.  We have a motivated, highly skilled parent body and have equally curious and capable children, who are full of ideas. In an environment where all the children are working on ideas, doing purposeful work, a creative energy develops that supports the further generation of ideas and creativity.

Ideas should bubble up spontaneously in the children, representing an innate directive that illuminates the path the child is on in life.  'Big' ideas represent an enduring thread that express the inner drives of the children.  These are the ideas that propel the child to work with purpose as they are building the skills necessary to express themselves in the wider world.  Big ideas are a natural crystallization of their work up until this point.  Big ideas can be the invention of a new product, the creation of a non-profit organization, the making of a documentary or the development of product for an organic market to name a few.

Children will work on their projects for at least two hours in the 'incubation center' with full parental support, and throughout the week at home if driven to do so.  Experts will be brought in as needed to help the children expand their knowledge and push through particularly challenging steps. It may take some time for a 'big' idea to manifest in the child.  Until it does, they can take part in the community outreach project.

As a community we are planning to produce a documentary about a global health epidemic that is spreading rapidly throughout our world: the meteoric rise of Type II Diabetes.  This is a preventable disease simply requiring proper nutrition.  Our goal as the human community, should be to eliminate diabetes.  We want to learn as much as we can about the disease, the causes, and possible steps that we can take in our community to eradicate it.  We believe that home and locally grown food, chemical free sustainable farms and children educating children, as well as other initiatives that the group can come up with, will help eliminate diabetes in our community.  We hope to show our documentary at the Connecticut Film Festival in April, 2013.

We are hoping that such a far reaching project will not only model how we can impact our local communities positively but will provide a myriad of learning opportunities in the technology, medical, communication and networking professions. The children will work alongside the adults doing meaningful work as equal partners in the project, learning by doing.

If you are interested in learning more about the project,  please email me at clfraise@gmail.com.









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