In the summer of 2016, volunteers from Ben’s Lighthouse embarked on a work trip to the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana. While being a chaperone on the trip with the teens from Newtown, CT, I was asked to help out in a foster home in the community. While the teens and I were there with the children, I secretly wished I had my guitar and some music to share with them because I knew that would have been a way to gather and connect with these children from displaced homes who had scant resources and very little to play with.
When I returned to Newtown, I started to think about how I might help children in communities like that one in Montana. What if we could just gather with children and talk about feelings and listen to others talk about feelings? Because kids love action and activity, I had the idea to add puppets to the mix and create scenarios where the kids, the “Lighthouse Keepers”, could examine and discuss the problems and what they could all do to help the puppets solve their problems through song, games, arts and crafts, movement, and imaginative play.
That’s how The Isle of Skoo started in 2017. I wrote the music and the stories of the inhabitants of the Isle, the puppet characters, and started to build the program with our program coordinator, Twyla Hafermann who performed and later directed the cast of the show.
My son Ben always wanted to be a lighthouse keeper, and one of our many nicknames for him was “Skoo”. I like to think that we can all be lighthouse keepers not only in his honor, but in the honor of all children because children deserve love, compassion and an understanding of how they feel and how to express those feelings safely and honestly.
We can share with one another the light in our hearts.
Ben’s Lighthouse is now proud to offer three different forms of The Isle of Skoo™:
- Skoo camp with the mentors
- a full-length puppet show for an assembly
- our smaller classroom program with two professional teaching artists.