COVID Digital Storytelling Project
Beautiful people! I hope this message finds you in good health and spirits!
As we move forward with the wind-down of our COVID Vaccination and Testing Ministry, here is an update on our Digital Storytelling Project!
Our team has been working hard to reach out to churches, community organizations, and individuals across the state to collect stories documenting people’s experiences during the pandemic. We also want to evaluate and document the best practices that helped us endure the pandemic safely, hoping they can be improved upon for future community and public health emergencies.
This is a heartfelt project for us as we aim to capture the real-life impact of this significant historical period. To help us curate this project, we have contracted a producer, Carter Baldwin, from Carter Designs! Carter has been busy traveling around the state, meeting new people, and recording in-person interviews. The final product will be part of the digital archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society.
We aim to complete the stories collection by the end of May. Furthermore, we are exploring hosting public screenings around the state, hosted by member churches, to unite the community and share our collective work.
We want to include as many stories as possible, so we have many options for people to utilize for story collection: in-person interviews, self-recorded interviews, Zoom, and written stories. We encourage you to share your stories – in any of those forms – and in any language; we are happy to work with interpreters so that more stories can be shared. We want the end result to be reflective of the whole of the Wisconsin church, not just the “popular” churches with more resources.
You can find the questions we’re asking here. If you would like to participate or know someone who would be interested and willing, please contact me (Eyon Biddle, Sr.) at eyon@wichurches.org!
