ESC: LAST CALL ESC project: La Casa nel Cuore

The Centro Culturale Fonti San Lorenzo is a voluntary association that is committed to preserving and bringing to life one of the few spaces for socializing in the homonymous neighborhood of Recanati. Founded at the beginning of the 90s, recovering a farmhouse and the surrounding abandoned park, which later became the permanent home of its activities by virtue of an agreement stipulated with the Municipality, the association has grown over time, fighting for that same space to become a place of aggregation, cultural proposal, solidarity and participatory democracy. The Cultural Center represents one of the main socio-aggregative realities of the Region, both in terms of quality and quantity of initiatives. In almost 30 years of activity, the Center has involved "young people of all ages" from Recanati in many recreational, cultural and social initiatives, based on the values ​​of participation, care, individual and collective self-realization.
Since 2012 it manages the Ludoteca and C.A.G. - Youth Aggregation Center - accredited service according to Regional Law 9/2003 in collaboration with the Municipality of Recanati.
This allowed giving daily continuity to the Centre's proposal, differentiating it according to age thanks to the contribution of volunteers, youth workers, and qualified educators. Only in 2018, more than 320 days of opening with an average of visitors (young people aged between 6 and 25) over 60, which in summer they come to double when not to triple. The educational activity, based on an anti-authoritarian and horizontal methodology capable of enhancing the peer to peer, empowerment and widespread learning, aims to promote encounter and coexistence, intergenerational exchange and freely chosen and enjoyed cultural proposal. Two areas dedicated to children (free game room and crafting room) and two rooms for children (free game room + cinema/table games room), a relax room for studying, reading or listening to vinyl music. A room with parquet for barefoot activities and a space dedicated to "young people over 60". Many are in fact "the grandparents" who find themselves at the Center to play cards or bowls; dozens and dozens of musicians and fans of different ages and musical styles who use the "Oliviero De Quintajé music room", a space that welcomes both beginners and professionals, for an average of over 50 test sessions a year.
The differentiation of the cultural proposal (which in the planning phase always identifies "main" targets) makes the public participating in the initiatives varied and eclectic. Among all, "Memorabilia. Festival of artisan and independent music" deserves special mention, a musical event of regional visibility that in this month of July 2019 reaches its eleventh edition, with which headliners connect with the main emerging groups of the territory.
The Cultural Center is not just a former farmhouse: the big park that surrounds it (almost 5000 square meters) is in fact managed and cared by the association's volunteers down to the smallest details. A complex structure, which includes a popular vegetable garden, a football/basketball court, a bowling green, an important children's play area and a pond with four turtles.
In 2015 the European adventure began, which made it possible to make the Center a place of "internationalization" of the territory.
From April 2016 Maria and Noelia, the first EVS volunteers were hosted. In the summer of the same year, four Galician interns arrived and in September the first Youth Exchange was held, which represented an extraordinary moment in the experience of socialization and educational programming.
Also in autumn an ​​exchange in Spain. In 2017 two other EVS volunteers, Jolanta and Sofia, in 2018 Isabel and Marta next to a Galician intern, Zoe; from November 2018 Rafael and Andrea and then Nerea, another Spanish intern. In recent months, 3 great news contributes, in the same way, both to the growth of the aim of the association's activities and to the stabilization of the same:
1 - Awarding of the notice for the three-year agreement with the Municipality of Recanati aimed at the management of the Ludoteca and CAG services, as well as of additional events and activities, with the connected overall management of the house and the green area;
2 - Grant for the three-year partnership in ESC;
3 - Grant on Education Poverty call to intensify activities with schools, children and the community in the next 2 years.
All this is the result of successful planning that aims to strengthen the impact of non-formal and informal education activities, not only in the associative context but on the various territorial levels, up to the European dimension.