Clark professor rewinds to create a neighborhood venture

“We can grow what we all have access to if we’re able to share it.”

-Professor Cara Berg Powers

It’s a video store. It’s a place to make zines. It’s a hub for local journalism.

Rewind video store is reminiscent of Blockbuster but offers more than movies to rent for a cozy night in. The video store is the headquarters of the Worcester Community Media Foundation, which exists to close gaps in local journalism and provide community-based media education.

“It’s a central location to connect the community with local reporters, provide access to tools like podcasting equipment, and hold workshops for skills such as making FOIA requests,” says Cara Berg Powers ’05, a visiting lecturer in the Department of Education. “We want this space to knit together the independent folks doing this work.”

Berg Powers organizes the Worcester Community Media Foundation with Bill Shaner, a local journalist; Andy Jimison, the owner of Materia Arcade and the soon-to-open Cordella’s Kava in Worcester; Vanessa Calixto, founder of the Worcester artist collective El Salón; and Chris Robarge, an organizer at the Massachusetts Bail Fund.

Anchoring the foundation’s work at a video store was serendipitous. Berg Powers always joked about wanting to run a video store, so when she learned that Materia Arcade was moving a few doors down to a bigger space on June Street, a far-flung idea became feasible.

“I worked at a video store in college and Bill vaguely remembers video stores from his childhood, so it wasn’t a hard sell,” says Berg Powers, who majored in screen studies and urban development/social change at Clark. “This is a way to add community spaces that we don’t have enough of, especially for younger Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z folks.”

Rewind opened at 116C June St. in the fall. The store is a nonprofit and invites visitors to consider community ownership of physical media during our digital age. The foundation put out a call for DVD donations before opening and city residents responded generously, so much so that Berg Powers says Rewind is paring down its library.

In February, Rewind hosted its first “community newsroom,” a meeting model that invites anyone to discuss organizing or community work and connect with journalists who cover such topics. Rewind will press play on more programming, including youth events, in the coming months.

“We’re hoping that more journalists will join and be excited to have a place where they can learn more about what’s going on in the community and find resources to get the best information and the most perspectives,” Berg Powers says.

In the meantime, the library of DVDs is available for rent. “It’s not fulfilling to scroll through Netflix and see what you want to watch in the same way it is to wander around a room and ask a person for suggestions,” she says.

Rewind offers paid memberships that include a Blockbuster-esque store card, an investment to help sustain the store and support the broader work of the foundation. People can also sign up for a free membership, which includes access to rentals and regular updates on upcoming events. Running the store is a volunteer effort and doors are currently open from 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

“We can grow what we all have access to if we’re able to share it,” says Berg Powers. She’s excited about some of the hard-to-find items that have landed on Rewind’s shelves, such as the PBS series “Wishbone,” which is not available online for streaming.

“We have a lot of classic films, like ‘Roman Holiday,’ and ‘The Apartment.’ When I was in the Clark University Film Society, ‘The Apartment’ was the film that I picked and showed, so I was very excited about that,” she says.

The store also has the 2008 Jack Black comedy “Be Kind Rewind” (a necessity for any video store), obscure documentaries, underground horror titles, and more. As donations poured in, Rewind naturally received duplicates of popular films.

“However much ‘Harry Potter’ you think we have, we have more,” Berg Powers says with a laugh. Duplicate titles will be for sale.

Whether people seek a nostalgic experience or a gathering spot to discuss city happenings and pitch new programs, Berg Powers is excited to see how Rewind develops.

“We’re going to make it what people need it to be,” she says.