The team bringing the Quince Orchard Project to life is as diverse as our community
Our community has been inspired by this film. In their own words, learn more about their participation and why they’re passionate about highlighting the Quince Orchard community.
Guiding Impact for Quince Orchard by contributor Jasmyn Shumate
The Quince Orchard team is embracing expectations for the social impact of our upcoming documentary: a film that can “lead to a greater awareness of the issue and an increased willingness to become involved in the issue and in the community.”
We want our project to share the deep human stories surrounding the cultural legacy and heritage of the Quince Orchard community. We are developing an Impact Guide to outline our multi-dimensional tools, techniques and curriculum that will engage our audiences as cultural stakeholders to create meaningful discussions about the storyline of our film.
We’ll use feedback from the Impact Guide to further analyze how the story environment of our film drives social change and impact surrounding the Quince Orchard community and similar communities across the country.
Jasmyn is a rising senior at American University whose interests in multimedia communications and social impact led her to join the Quince Orchard Project. Jasmyn is a member of our outreach team dedicated to strategizing a strategic communications plan to levitate and maximum the promotional reach of our film.
“Immediately, I was drawn to Jason’s passion to spread social impact through digital storytelling in order to create a space that illuminates the perspectives, beliefs and values of the Quince Orchard community. What a privilege it is to be a part of this experience.”
Documenting history on site by contributor Colin Hendy
During the Spring 2016 semester, I participated with the project between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Public History department and the Quince Orchard Project and the Pleasant View Trustee Board to determine where bodies were buried on the historic site. Not all burials were recorded and there were numerous stories of individuals spontaneously burying their loved ones because there were few African American cemeteries at the time.
We were tasked with developing a library of those sites that are known, while a future team would delve into discovering unknown sites using Ground Penetrating Radar technology. We developed an inventory system that outlined the conditions of existing tombstones and other information gathered from each site.
From there, we created a project to inform the school population about the historic Pleasant View site. As a class, we chose to explore how the site’s three sections mirrored the life cycle of African Americans from this by-gone area. The class was divided into three groups: the school (which symbolized early life), the church (which symbolized mid life), and the cemetery (which symbolized the end of life). Each group was tasked with presenting information about their specific area and how that area can connect to the modern community. We now have this information to catalog within the film and document in the Site’s archives.
“The best part of participating is that we now have – the community now has – this knowledge to carry around with us, to inspire us to help preserve this important historic site.”
Want to participate?
Learn how you can help bring the Quince Orchard Project to life.