Plenty Downtown Bookshop Expands Civic Education Work through America 250 Constitution STudy

A year of studying our founding documents, and considering what it means to be good neighbors today

As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, Plenty Downtown Bookshop has used the occasion to intentionally gather any and all interested community members to study, gather, and consider what it means to participate in the life of a community.

Through its America 250 Constitution Study, Plenty is expanding its civic education work across Putnam County, bringing together students, educators, college students, families, and community members around the study of the Constitution and the ideas that have shaped our nation. The work includes partnerships with schools, Tennessee Tech, the National Constitution Center, and LEAPS (Lottery for Education Afterschool Programs), with additional opportunities continuing to take shape throughout the year.

At the heart of the initiative is a simple idea: a healthy community is built by people who are willing to learn together.

Studying the Constitution Together

Plenty is partnering with the National Constitution Center to bring Constitution-focused programming to the community, including the launch of three Franklin Circles—small groups designed to give community members an opportunity to study the Constitution together, ask questions, and grow in their understanding of the ideas and principles that shape American civic life.

The Constitution Study is also extending into the local schools. Through a growing network of school partnerships, Plenty is developing opportunities for elementary students to engage with the Constitution in age-appropriate ways, creating space for young people to ask questions, explore the foundations of American government, and begin thinking about their own role in a community.

Breaking Bread and Learning Together

Plenty is also partnering with Tennessee Tech to bring university students into the bookshop for family-style meals and conversation with guest speakers whose work is rooted in Tennessee and national constitutional history. (Sign up on our website if you are a college student or young adult!)

The upcoming series, Tennessee's Seat at America's Table, will explore Tennessee's place in the story of the nation through the perspectives of scholars and community voices. Students will gather around the table, share a meal, listen to a speaker, and have the opportunity to engage in conversation. 

It is a format that feels very much at home at Plenty.

For us, civic education can happen around a table, it’s not limited to a classroom. It can happen over a shared meal. It can happen when a fifth grader asks a question, when a group of neighbors studies a founding document together, or when college students sit down with someone whose research gives them a new way of seeing their own state.

Books as a Starting Place

This work grows naturally out of Plenty's larger mission as a nonprofit independent bookshop.

We believe books can help us become more thoughtful and more connected. And we see time and again that reading is the beginning of a much larger conversation. The America 250 Constitution Study is one expression of that belief. 

Rather than treating the nation's 250th anniversary as simply a historical milestone, Plenty is using it as an invitation to ask questions together: What can we learn from the people and ideas that came before us? What does it mean to be a citizen? How do communities become stronger? And what responsibilities do we have to one another? As this work continues to grow, Plenty hopes to create more opportunities throughout the Upper Cumberland for people of different ages and backgrounds to read, study, ask questions, and engage meaningfully with the shared story of our nation.