When StoryCorps brought their portable recording booth to Spokane in 2015, the organizers asked specifically for two categories of interviews: tales of being in the Military, and stories related to gender identity. SPR volunteer producer Emmet Stackelberg has taken those SFCC recordings and turned them into two separate half-hour programs that aired June 21, 2016.
Project OutLoud recorded members of the LGBTQ+ community. The on-campus group Alliance assisted this StoryCorps project, which sought stories of those most often excluded from the historical record. These included people who lived before the 1969 Stonewall uprisings to today's youth.
Stackelberg also compiled the Military Voices Initiative special which aired on KPBX this past Memorial Day. StoryCorps created this project to allow civilians better understanding of the complex realities of troops' service and sacrifice.
StoryCorps began in 2005 as a way to collect, share, and preserve people’s stories. Any two people -- family, friends, co-workers, etc. -- are invited to interview each other, and the results are, with permission, housed at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Recorded interviews are also shared with NPR's Morning Edition.
Communities that have recorded interviews through StoryCorps can access them locally. SPR reached out to StoryCorps to create these compilations from SFCC's participants.
StoryCorp recently updated their free recording app available for Apple and Android devices. With the rise of smart phones, anyone is able to find a quiet room and preserve an oral history.