Today – the Friday following Thanksgiving – is National Day of Listening. It began in 2008 when StoryCorps launched the effort to encourage Americans to start a yearly tradition of listening to and preserving a loved one’s story. It’s an effort to collect stories that will surely grow more valuable with each passing generation.
While the day set-aside is November 27, you can gather your stories all year long. StoryCorps makes it easy by providing a Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide and special toolkits.
This day has spurred a year-long project here at Mariner to collect and share the stories of association volunteers. Over the next year, we are seeking your stories. We will gather them, create an archive and share these for all to read, find motivation and celebrate the thousands of volunteers who make associations rich. To share, just contact us and we’ll set up a time to talk. Or send us your story.
We’ll start off the sharing with a story from a Public Relations Society of America Maryland Chapter volunteer in our next post.
As you consider your story, check out the many that have been shared through the Day of Listening in its archive of broadcast stories and in the New York Times bestselling book, Listening Is an Act of Love. Incidentally, 100% of the royalties from the sales go directly to supporting StoryCorps’s work to record, preserve, and share the stories of everyday people – as do donations.
We’re looking forward to an exciting year-long project and hope you’ll join us. You’ll be in good company as many organizations have joined the project including NPR, American Library Association, the Corporation for National and Community Service/Americorps, Corporations for Public Broadcasting, local public radio stations and community organizations across the country.