StoryCorps announces 2019 Mobile Tour stop in Yuma
November 8, 2018Yuma, AZ (November 8, 2018) – Yuma was announced today as the final stop on the 2019 StoryCorps Mobile Tour. KAWC will welcome the national storytelling organization to record, preserve, and share conversations from Yuma and La Paz counties that will be archived for future generations at the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress.
“We are the smallest station, by far, scheduled for the tour, so this is a big deal,” said KAWC Director of Development Alice Ferris.
The StoryCorps’ Airstream trailer-turned-recording-booth will start in Orlando, Fla. on Jan. 5, and travel across the U.S. visiting various cities for a month each before making its way to Yuma on Nov. 19, for the tour’s conclusion. StoryCorps will partner with KAWC, which will air a selection of the interviews that are recorded. StoryCorps may also share edited versions of select interviews collected through the tour via its weekly broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition, or through its digital platforms or books.
The Mobile Tour was launched back in 2005 and has since facilitated hundreds of thousands of conversations between people who know and care about one another. For the 2019 tour, StoryCorps expands the potential of the MobileBooth, incorporating its major new initiative, One Small Step—encouraging conversations between individuals who disagree politically.
One Small Step seeks to counteract intensifying political divides by facilitating and recording face-to-face conversations that enable Americans who disagree to listen to each other with respect. The project aims to remind people that they have more in common than divides them and that treating those with whom we disagree with decency and respect is essential to a functioning democracy. In order to record an interview as part of One Small Step, participants must make a note of their intention in advance when they schedule their interview reservation.
StoryCorps creates comfort and intimacy for its interviews, with a trained facilitator guiding participants through the process. After each 40-minute recording session, participants receive a complimentary copy of their interview, and a second copy is archived at the Library of Congress.
Interview reservations, which are free and available to the public, will be announced before StoryCorps’ arrival in each city.
For more information about StoryCorps, visit www.storycorps.org or watch their two-minute documentary here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk2pbqZJnvM.
Contact:
Alice Ferris
Director of Development
KAWC Colorado River Public Media
alice.ferris@kawc.org
(928) 344-7690