🎒 Backpack Chronicles

A Community Storytelling Initiative

Everyone carries a story. What's in your backpack?

Backpack Chronicles is a portable storytelling program that helps people uncover, preserve, and share the stories that shape their lives and communities.

We train local storytellers to document oral histories, host public sharing events, and build lasting archives that reflect the voices of those often left out of the official record.

Why It Matters

Communities are rich with untold stories—of resilience, creativity, migration, identity, and everyday life.
Backpack Chronicles is our way of honoring those stories.

We believe storytelling is a form of stewardship. When we listen, document, and pass stories on, we’re building bridges across generations—and shaping how the future remembers the past.

What We Offer

📚 Storyteller Training

Participants learn to:

  • Conduct meaningful interviews with care and curiosity

  • Use recording and editing tools (even just a smartphone!)

  • Preserve stories for future access and sharing

  • Practice ethical, trauma-informed storytelling

  • Build confidence in their voice as a cultural keeper

No experience necessary—just a willingness to listen and share.

🤝 Community Engagement

We bring storytelling into everyday spaces:

  • Workshops in libraries, community centers, and schools

  • Intergenerational story circles

  • Public events where stories are performed, recorded, or exhibited

  • Collaborations with local historians, artists, and organizers

Backpack Chronicles can travel. Let us bring the kit to your community.

Who It’s For

  • Youth & elders

  • Artists & activists

  • Teachers, librarians, and community organizers

  • Anyone with a story to tell (or help tell!)

We especially center BIPOC, immigrant, queer, disabled, and working-class storytellers whose histories are often missing from public narratives.

Bring Backpack Chronicles to Your Community

We offer:

  • One-time workshops

  • Multi-session story circles

  • Custom residencies or school-based projects

  • Train-the-trainer models for long-term impact

🎒 Let's co-create something rooted, joyful, and real.

📩 Contact us to learn more or schedule a program:
info@storysparkcollective.org
🌐 storysparkcollective.org