NPR’s StoryCorps is coming to Athens. The production is heading to the Classic City in October looking for Athenians with stories to tell. Danielle Andersen is the associate Director of Story Corps’ mobile tour.
“Really what our goals are is to facilitate conversations between people who know and care about each other and archive them at the Library of Congress in D.C. so that future generations can learn from them,” Andersen said. “Right now we have over 73,000 of them at the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress.”
Staffers will be here for about a month beginning October 14th.
They invited area nonprofits and other agencies to a presentation last week.
“We’re trying to form some partnerships with local community organizations, educational institutions, cultural organizations, anybody that can help us spread the word and reach out to communities that may have heard of us.”
Knowa Johnson with the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement was among those attending.
“I had never heard of StoryCorps, and I think it’s a great thing that they’re doing,” Johnson said. “Watching it, (the presentation) I was getting inspired to just do it for myself for my family because I feel like everybody should have that in their family. I feel like it’s a great thing that they’re doing it in the community and they’re going to archive it so that everyone can see that their experiences are similar and they can empathize with each other.”
All stories will be archived at the Library of Congress.
StoryCorps stories air Friday mornings during Morning Edition. Details on submitting stories will be provided at a later date. For more information, visit: www.storycorps.org.