California Story Fund
Up From the Understory
Center for the Study of Regional Change, UC Davis
Davis
Project Director: Jonathan London
Local youth to document community efforts to revitalize communities in eastern Calaveras County
This project will document the stories of a diverse group of rural residents in four small towns in Calaveras County who have come together to find ways to generate thriving rural communities while sustaining the environment.
Approximately 10 individuals from the towns of Glencoe, Railroad Flat, West Point and Wilseyville will be featured as storytellers.
Among those are a former mill worker who founded a local youth organization; a life young resident of railroad Flat who launched a job training initiative to get middle-aged residents retrained for jobs in the burgeoning ecotourism industry; and a Miwuk elder who has dedicated her life to passing on tribal cultural traditions to native youth and stopping drug use.
The stories will be gathered by youth from three local youth organization. The youth will learn about local history, photography, project planning, and audio production and oral history techniques at weekly meetings. They will then apply what they learn -- conducting audio interviews of storytellers, scanning photographs, and combining the two elements to create a multimedia story. In conjunction with the project, the youth will also create a set of posters containing images, quotes and research information demonstrating the breadth of their community work.
The project will culminate in two community events: one at UC Davis and the other in Calaveras County. The events will feature a presentation of the stories and community discussion.