Photo by Samantha L. Justice
Next month, some Northeast residents will be a hop, skip and a jump away from one the most innovative organizations hosting free and low-cost education courses in the District. The all-volunteer group Knowledge Commons DC (KCDC) will inhabit a ground floor space at 1613 Rhode Island Avenue NE—funded by a grant through Cultural DC’s Storefront DC program.
“We’re really excited to have a home base for this session,” says Erika Rydberg, co-organizer of the group that’s taught over 600 classes around the city in libraries, businesses, and unconventional spaces like Metro trains and parking spots.
While classes have already starting taking place across D.C., settling down in Northeast—through December—will give KCDC a chance to be part of a distinct community again (a month-long session in 2013 was hosted in a pop-up classroom in Adams Morgan.)
“We’ve explored all four quadrants of the city in our classes, but would have to say the majority of our classes have been in Northwest, so [now] we’ll get to see more of Northeast and hopefully bring a unique space to this part of this city,” says Rydberg. The organization has also been in talks with Rhode Island Avenue Mainstreet and the Langdon Park Community Association about possible collaborations.
While the group’s most popular course, lockpicking, is no more (“we offered it as a repeat class until our amazing teacher moved to San Francisco,” Rydberg says), there’s much in store for this fall. Classes already lined up include a community photography project, exploratory jogging, and musical discovery lab.
KCDC will welcome community members, teachers, and current and prospective students to an opening party at the new space on October 17. In the meantime, Rydberg says, the group is looking for teachers in Brookland and Langdon (who can apply to submit a course proposal), and monetary contributions are always welcome, too.
More than anything, though, they hope that students will find their way to the temporary classroom. “We would love folks from across the city to come to our pop-up space,” Rydberg says.
