We hope you all enjoy your (likely, smaller and cozier than usual) Thanksgiving holiday gatherings this weekend. A great activity, whether you are with your family in person or connecting with them by phone or video call, is to interview each other to uncover family stories.
The nonprofit organization StoryCorps is a fantastic resource and encourages you to participate in #TheGreatThanksgivingListen, "a national movement that empowers young people—and people of all ages—to create an oral history of the contemporary United States by recording an interview with an elder, mentor, friend, or someone they admire."
StoryCorps has an app you can use for in-person interviews with built-in questions to choose from and the ability to upload those interviews to the Library of Congress. There is also an online component, StoryCorps Connect, which allows you to record interviews that are conducted online from separate locations.
You don't need technology to have these conversations -- all you really need are insightful questions, and StoryCorps has them! We encourage adults to interview their children, as well as children to interview their elders.
2020 may sometimes feel like a year to forget -- but in the future we will look back and want to remember what we were doing and feeling. StoryCorps interviews are a great way to do it!
