Mar 4, 2022 2 min read

After being awarded the Council of Independent Colleges’ Humanities Research for the Public Good Grant, St. Vincent College and the Fred Rogers Center will be launching a new community programming series, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Again?”, in conjunction with the Latrobe Art Center.

The programming aims to increase public access and awareness of the important cultural and intellectual legacy of Fred Rogers. The programming will also explore the resources of the Fred Rogers Archive, the history of Latrobe and local programming in the Latrobe community.

The series will take the form of two exhibits with accompanying events, the first of which is at the Latrobe Art Center through March 19. It explores Rogers’ childhood and lifelong involvement in Latrobe, and the impact his parents and grandparents had on the community. The closing event for the exhibit, “Feeling Neighborly: Fred Rogers and Being a Good Neighbor,” is set for Saturday, March 19 at 3 p.m. It will consider how Rogers’ real neighborhood compared to the neighborhood of make-believe, how that neighborhood evolved over 30 years on television, and what children and grown-ups learned.

The second exhibit begins with an opening event on Saturday, April 23 at 3 p.m., “Arts in the Neighborhood and the Natural World.” It will focus on how Rogers communicated the importance of art to children. Students will present research that covers preliminary notes, production materials and scripts. The final event, “Neighbor 143 (I Love You)” will be Saturday May 21 at 3 p.m.

For information go online to www.stvincent.edu.