First Person Essay Series
Stories directly from the source… leaders in the community
Project Synopsis
Stories are the base of the structure that history is made from. Without them, we do not have the context, the reasoning or the impact of the events that brought us to where we are now in the world. Often, stories within underserved communities have gone unheard, misunderstood and overlooked. We reached out to begin a collaboration with Pittsburgh’s PublicSource, who has had a running series of first-person essays that they release consistently. Through this collaboration, we used our connection to leaders in the communities we have worked with to create a direct pathway for them to tell their stories, share their inspirations and give their thoughts on the world around them and why they aspire to make it better.
We have had multiple stories told throught his pipeline, ranging from Terri Minor Spenser’s story of creating a chance for a better future for ex-incarcerated individuals to Qiyam Ansari’s story of turning a near-death experience into providing life changing improvements to air quality of people in his community. We love the work that the leaders in our circle are able to do to advance the world around them. Their ability and willingness to do this work is often a direct response to their lived stories, and their ability to tell these stories will serve to inspire their peers and the next generations of change-makers to also create an impact on the world around them.
Accomplishments
We have been proud to present six of our community leaders and collaborators’ stories to the world through PublicSource’s First-Person Essay Series. From Terri Minor-Spencer’s powerful retelling of her life’s inspiration that led to the Colorful Background’s impactful program to Dr. Evon Walter’s story of moving from Jamaica to directly impacting the lives of the next generation of youth and their future careers in STEM fields, we have worked to present some of the most life changing stories to the world.
Our hope is that by sharing these stories of heroism and community impact stemming from the lives of people next to us… people within our communities that we can pass on the street, have a conversation with and interact with in our daily lives… We hope that these stories can impact the
next generation of changemakers to step into their own stories and create the world they envision around them. These are stories of people becoming the change the they wanted to see… and shining within their roles as leaders.