Stories are one common way we share about ourselves and the world around us. In fact, some think of stories as the building blocks of community. This month, our Community Powered Project Coordinators examined how the stories we tell can create connections in communities.

During the week of National Coming Out Day (October 11) Anthony, our CPPC in Racine, hosted a digital campaign to collect and tell coming-out stories called “Whispering Closets.” By collecting these stories, Anthony hoped to help LGBTQIA+ Racine residents see themselves in their community. The library and Anthony shared these stories anonymously on social media and kickstarted further conversation among LGBTQIA+ community members in Racine. See an example of one of the stories below.

The Whispering Closets program collected coming-out stories from Racine LGBTQIA+ community members.

In the Forest County Potawatomi community, our CPPC Sapatis was able to join in on an oral history interview with Jim Thunder, a Potawatomi elder. Jim does significant work in the FCP community to share Potawatomi language with younger generations. In the interview, Jim was able to share about his life and experiences, passing down his knowledge of the community.

In Appleton, our CPPC Rachel organized two different events focused exclusively on storytelling. On October 18th, Jen Rubin from Wisconsin Humanities’ Love Wisconsin initiative gave a workshop on how to tell oral stories. Jen has been a co-producer of the Moth StorySlam in Madison for over ten years and is the executive producer of Love Wisconsin, a digital storytelling project sharing Wisconsinites’ stories. Jen spoke about the several elements of good storytelling and helped participants tell their stories in a dynamic way.

Katie Chicquette acted as the emcee for the Storycatchers Storytelling event on Belonging. A large audience listened to her and nine others told their stories. Our CPPC Rachel, pictured in the right photo, shared a story, as well!

Following the workshop, Rachel, in partnership with Appleton Public Library and the local storytelling group Storycatchers hosted a night of storytelling about Belonging. It was Storycatcher’s first big storytelling event after the pandemic and brought nine storytellers (including Rachel!) up to the mic. Storytellers shared about finding a sense of home after moving, or feeling connections with friends and family, or creating belonging after hardship. The atmosphere was welcoming and warm–so much so that two audience members got up and told stories during the event.

This storytelling event was a wonderful example of how stories can create community–by sharing openly about their experiences, the storytellers connected to the audience and made them feel part of a community together.