The Edgewater Activity Book

In 2021, Art x Love was engaged by The Trust for Public Land to create a special activity book for the Edgewater community in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood. The term “Edgewater” comes from the community’s close proximity to the Neponset River, and was the historic homeland of the Neponset Tribe – one of the many tribes that made up the larger Massachusett Tribe. Today, this community includes many families from the southern United States, Haiti, Trinidad, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and many other Carribean nations.

In 2016, residents from eight streets came together in response to the historic neglect and lack of investment they were seeing in their community, and formed the Edgewater Neighborhood Association. Together, we explored the neighborhood and created a free bilingual (Engligh + Haitian Creole) 16-page activity book that educated people, celebrated the region’s history, and served as a vital platform for community building and participatory design.

Art x Love worked with residents and TPL leaders to develop dozens of activities for the book that would inspire and celebrate the diverse heritage and identity of the Edgewater community, and provide key insights to inform future investment and fundraising efforts. Hundreds of Edgewater Activity Books were distributed across the neighborhood, where it continues to serve to this day as a valued resource to bring people together and connect the community to important local resources.