The Community Powered Project Coordinators (CPPCs) have spent the past month getting to know their communities by attending community events, doing local history research, speaking to other community leaders, and spending time in their local libraries and cultural institutions. As they have started to get a feel for the community, they’ve begun to use the process of asset mapping to keep track of community resources, strengths and history. Their next steps will be to build these maps with community input!

This month, Emily in Spooner hosted the first Community Powered event: Stories from Those Who Served. In coordination with the Washburn County Fair, UW Extension, and the Spooner Memorial Library, Emily set up a space to collect local veteran’s oral histories during Veteran’s day at the fair. Emily interviewed six local veterans, recording their experiences serving in different branches of the military. She later released these stories as a part of a digital exhibit and partnered with the Wisconsin Veterans Museum to archive these histories in their extensive oral history collection!

We look forward to seeing what else the CPPCs are able to do as they become more enmeshed in their communities!