My Dot Tour Kicks Off! Tours Aug. 6, 7, 13, 14

The Fields Corner Collaborative is pleased to kick off My Dot Tour, a multimedia, youth-led walking tour of Fields Corner in Dorchester this August! The free tours will take place Saturday August 6 and 13 at 11 a.m. and on Sunday August 7 and 14 at 4 p.m. Tours depart from Gallagher Insurance (~1471 Dorchester Ave) and Pho Hoa (1356 Dorchester Avenue) will host a reception after each tour where participants can cool off indoors and enjoy delicious Vietnamese cuisine. There is a 20 attendee-maximum at each tour – RSVP today! For media inquiries and to RSVP with your preferred tour date and time, contact mydottour@gmail.com. You may also call (617) 855-8687.

On the first two weekends in August, My Dot Tour teen guides will for the second year lead participants on hour-long walking tours of Fields Corner. The tours will present a narrative of not only the past, but also the present and future of this diverse and exciting community.

To enhance the tour experience, each My Dot Tour stop hosts a street sign with location information accessible by phone, and via quick response (QR) code, an information-rich code that can be scanned using a smart phone. The tour website further features audio, images and text about each site.

The tour emphasizes participatory involvement in the creation of a living archive of Fields Corner sites – public comments about the past, present, or future of the area can be phoned in or sent via SMS at the tour stops and through a variety of ways on the website – and provides information to the public well beyond scheduled tour dates.

About

The Fields Corner Collaborative (FCC) is a group of non-profit organizations concerned with celebrating the culture of youth leadership, the history, and the architecture, of Fields Corner for improved social capital and economic development. The FCC consists of the Dorchester Environmental Health Coalition, Dorchester Historical Society, Fields Corner Main Street, Historic Boston Incorporated, and SCI Dorchester/Dotwell. Grant funding is provided by the Boston Foundation of Architecture and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. The open source technical components are being developed in collaboration with and support from the MIT Center for Civic Media.

Last year’s My Dot Tour pilot established a walking tour route and live walking tour created and presented by the teen participants, printed a walking tour map booklet, and strengthened teen leadership skills. This year’s new and improved version explores multimedia methods of disseminating tour content.