Scranton Area Community Foundation Grant Awarded

The Scranton Area Community Foundation has awarded a $5,000 grant to The University of Scranton to support the ongoing “Scranton’s Story, Our Nation’s Story” project.

“Scranton’s Story, Our Nation’s Story” explores the aspirational journey to fulfill our national ideals through the lens of Scranton, an iconic American city that has experienced many of the key elements of our nation’s experience, such as industrial era growth and decline, waves of immigration past and present and Black and Indigenous experiences. The ongoing two-year project is supported by a 2021 National Endowment for the Humanities grant. The project includes a number of programs in a variety of participatory formats and as well as story collection component that will engage a diverse group of Scrantonians, which the Scranton Area Community Foundation grant will help to support.

“The story collection project is rooted in the central place that diverse human stories play in the humanities, critical to the goal of sharing Scranton’s stories as archetypal of other stories representing the many American experiences,” said Julie Schumacher Cohen, assistant vice president for Community and Government Affairs and “Scranton Stories” project director, who also noted that University students majoring in communication have assisted in the recording of the stories through community-based-learning projects included in their courses.

Cohen said that the ongoing story collection includes a public engagement phase this fall that includes an “I am Scranton” social media campaign and collection process at public events inviting stories in different modes, formats and through an online submission form.

Community organizations collaborating on this project include Black Scranton Project, Center for the Living City, Lackawanna County Arts and Culture Department, The Lackawanna Historical Society, Lackawanna County Immigration Inclusion Comm., Narrative 4, the Scranton Area Ministerium, United Neighborhood Centers of NEPA and WVIA.