At 7 p.m. Friday, Maine Public will broadcast a community conversation called "Love Lewiston, a Maine Calling Special" on Maine Public Radio, Maine Public Television and at mainepublic.org. It will attempt to shine a light on the way forward for a community, and a state, recovering from one of the darkest episodes in its history.
Morning Edition host Irwin Gratz spoke with producers James Blue and Bronwyn Berry about the program and its goals.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Blue: What we've tried to do is to create a program that's really focused on three large themes. The first being healing and how people here are sort of healing themselves and others. Then trying to examine how this event will change Maine and change Mainers. And then finally examining sort of how people move forward. And so the issues of politics and of laws and of gun control, they're sort of in the periphery, and they're not sort of the direct topics and subjects that we will be discussing, although they will certainly come up. But what we tried to do is to really tell the story through individuals. And we have as guests in the audience, panelists who can speak about their experiences.
Gratz: Can we talk about the three goals one at a time? So Bronwyn, perhaps you can talk first about healing?
Berry: Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to talk about the tone of the show. We really wanted to provide something that is uplifting, that people can look at and feel like there is a way out of this for themselves and their community. When we're talking about healing, we actually go to a school superintendent from Highland Park, who has been through a similar experience and can talk about the six months after the shooting in Highland Park, and how he worked with the kids in his school to bring about healing. We then move into some guests in studio. These guests are from local Lewiston schools and therapists. And they will provide more context and actually like some real practical tips about healing, especially for children.
Gratz: Going forward, you also want to talk about change.
Blue: Yeah, I mean, we're very interested in learning and wanting to know from Mainers how this experience is going to change this place. Obviously, there are a number of questions about, do these yellow flag laws work? So we're hoping to have someone from law enforcement. And you know, there are additional questions about the medical community who are now seeing injuries and seeing things, you know, that they didn't see in the past. In addition, you know, there's this whole concept of, what is going to happen to young people in the schools? So we have a local basketball coach who's joining us to sort of talk about what he's seeing. We are setting the tone for change. If you look at Rep. Jared Golden's statement of how he's now planning to support and try to enact an assault weapons ban, we're not taking that issue on directly, but we are using that as an example of the change that this kind of event can induce.
Gratz: And then the last of those three areas is moving forward, which I take it is kind of related to the change that you were just talking about.
Blue: Yeah, it's really trying to understand how things are going to move from here and sort of the direction things are going to move. Bronwyn found a very interesting example at the MILL.
Berry: We were interested in going to the sites where the tragedies happened, but we didn't want to just film them and cover it because we need a real clear point of view from someone in the community. And so we actually chose to follow the artist Tanja Hollander, who is an archivist. She is photographing all the memorabilia that has been left outside those sites, and she is preserving them for the future. She is doing this project in connection with Rachel Ferrante who is at the MILL museum. And together they are working on ways of preserving the memorabilia. So that can be part of the history of this area and something that we look at and remember the victims, remember the bad times, but also look at it in a way that we can move forward.