CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (WHDH) - Want to rip up the past year and start again? The Cambridge Historical is ready with the shredder.
The group set up a socially distanced gathering where residents could write down what about 2020 they wanted to leave behind, and then feed it to a paper shredder. Organizers initially had plans for a more destructive event, said historical society executive director Marieke Van Damme.
“We had talks about it and we thought ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting, wouldn’t it be fun to put all of our bad things into a dumpster and set it on fire?’” Van Damme said. “We also thought that it really wasn’t Cambridge. In Cambridge we would shred our feelings and then recycle them.”
After the shredding, people were encouraged to also write down what they would like to take with them into 2021 and were given a bag of seeds to plant.
“We are shredding the past. … we think that we can grow as a city from this,” Van Damme said. “So we shred our bad things, but we want to look forward and think about the future.”
But the shredding isn’t done yet. People can post what they would like to leave behind from 2020 on one of the Cambridge Historical Society’s social media accounts and the group will print it and shred it for them.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)