A few months ago, the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative started pulling together a variety of partners to develop a regional story collection collaborative. The Story Collaborative is a collection of organizations and community members working together to capture stories of individuals who may be impacted by federal cuts and other proposed policies from the current Federal Administration. The goal is to amplify the stories and experiences of local residents to influence public and political will, humanize the issue, and provide lawmakers with powerful testimonies. We have developed an online story collection tool that just went live a few days ago.
Here’s a bit more detail about it:
- Check out theStory Collection Tool to make it easy to submit and uplift the stories of the people you serve, yourself, or your neighbors.
- Participants can do so right from your phone or desktop.
- The website includes requests for consent/anonymity
- As the tool develops and stories are received, folks can help to raise awareness to what we heard by sharing on social media, with local media and reaching out to their legislators.
- If you would like to be on the distribution list to receive stories once they are ready to be shared, please reply and let me know.
Attached are two different flyers. One is organizational (intended to engage orgs in the work of story collection), the other is community facing (requesting them to use their voice and tell their story). The community facing flyer can be posted any and everywhere. If you are able to get it posted beyond Monroe County, that would be particularly impactful.
