Project StoryKeeper Seeks 100,000 Volunteers to Preserve Values of American Elders.

Non-Profit Organization Will Train 'StoryKeepers' in Art of Creating Audio Senior Histories; Preserving 'Who They Are' for Generations to Come

MESA, Ariz., Feb. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Project StoryKeeper, an organization whose mission is to preserve the American heritage by capturing and sharing the life stories of all Americans, today announced it is seeking 100,000 volunteers to be trained for the special skill of interviewing and gathering audio biographies of elders. The stories will then be posted on the internet for family and friends to enjoy, preserve and add to for generations to come.

"I personally did not know my parents all that well, and by the time they passed away it was too late," said Dennis Stack, Founder of Project StoryKeeper, the organization which is initiating the not-for-profit Project StoryKeeper. "As a stockbroker, I worked with many of my clients very hard to preserve their money and wealth for their children, only to see it squandered or create more problems than it solved. It finally hit me that in our society we do a heck of a good job preserving the valuables ... but not such a good job of preserving the values."

Project StoryKeeper is Stack's answer to that challenge. The project involves recruiting 100,000 volunteers, ideally those that already work or could work within elder care settings such as hospices, assisted living facilities, and home care agencies. Volunteers will be trained on how to use a special "audio biography kit", which includes questions, interviewing techniques to be used in drawing out the personal histories of senior citizens within those facilities.

Proper training is essential since a StoryKeeper's job of capturing a life story -- with all its joys, sorrows, lessons and laughter -- is a specialized skill. "It's not as easy as just putting a microphone in front of someone," said Tom Cormier, Executive Director of Project StoryKeeper. "We have developed a process based on several years of conducting thousands of interviews; there's special technique to getting the interviewee warmed up, opened up, and speaking freely and openly." Cormier also stresses that the process is best left to a third-party Storykeeper, since having ...