For 35 years, Scott Macaulay has been organizing the annual holiday gathering in Massachusetts for anyone who wants to come. "I can't fix the country ... but I can brighten my own corner," he said.
At 16, Ellaraino visited her great-grandmother, Silvia, for the first time. And Silvia had plenty of stories to tell — about being a teenager, and seeing the Civil War, and slavery, come to an end.
"We were doing an awful job in an awful time," veteran Garett Reppenhagen said in a StoryCorps conversation. "If I shed any joy to anybody on that base that day, then I think it was all worth it."
Bob VanSumeren served nearly six years in prison for robbery. But Mike McKenney, the dad of his former girlfriend, never gave up on Bob. "Your visits kept me from sinking fully into prison," Bob said.
At StoryCorps, Brian McConnell said he's found his "calling" as a Delta Honor Guard Coordinator. The volunteer group honors the remains of military members killed in active duty.
Helen Merrill and her granddaughter, Elizabeth Hartley, remember their family's matriarch, whose determination to vote in 1920 drove her to the polls even though she was recovering from the flu.
Jinny Savolainen was looking for a sense of purpose when the pandemic hit Leverett, Mass. "Just when things seemed so dark, I found some light in the words of the people all around me," she said.
Lauren Magaña and Michelle Huston work with elderly patients. It's challenging work that's been even tougher during the pandemic. They care for people at the end of their lives, now from a distance.
Emma Pelosi and Debra Fisher, who work with children with special needs at separate New York public schools, find support from each other through the challenges of getting kids back to school.
For StoryCorps, Erin Haggerty spoke with her father, George Barlow, about how his words saw her through the tough times she faced as one of the only Black kids in her Iowa City community.
Earlier this year, Albert Petrocelli died after contracting the coronavirus. StoryCorps revisits a 2005 interview with Albert and his wife remembering a son who died in the Sept. 11 attacks.
A father and son reflect how their family has honed toolmaking through three generations at their Brooklyn, N.Y., shop. Despite pandemic stresses, they hope to be in business well into the future.
Ayim Darkeh's mother worried about his safety when he was wasn't at home. Darkeh told her he hopes he's able to protect his own son and "he has the opportunity to be young and just grow."
Two cousins remember their grandfather, who came to the U.S. from Mexico during World War II and often masked his experiences with discrimination with humor.
