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Samantha talks about her childhood and her appreciation for her Jewish heritage and her understanding of her family history and how it shaped her experiences through life and helped her to face her toughest challenges. Samantha's Story Samantha talks about her childhood and her appreciation for her Jewish heritage and her understanding of her family history and how it shaped her experiences through life and helped her to face her toughest challenges. Scroll to listen Samantha's Story 00:00 / 03:04

Amy shares about moving from NYC to Philadelphia as a young girl. During this time, she learned some of the hard lessons about hatred and what it means to stand out. She also learned that some of her closets friends are the ones who have the most differences between them. Amy's Story Amy shares about moving from NYC to Philadelphia as a young girl. During this time, she learned some of the hard lessons about hatred and what it means to stand out. She also learned that some of her closets friends are the ones who have the most differences between them. Scroll to listen Amy's Story 00:00 / 03:46

< Back Tony's Story Tony reflects on his working relationship with the reknowned American storyteller Studs Terkel. Studs was best known for his oral history books, in which he interviewed ordinary people about their lives and experiences. Tony worked closely with Studs and provides great insight on how important their work was. Everybody has a story to tell- Tony and Studs were instrumental in documenting these stories for decades. 00:00 / 18:07 Thinking about and talking about stories, just makes me remember so well the great storyteller Studs Turkle who was born in 1912. Who spoke with hundreds of people, all over the country, about their lives, these conversations he was always uncomfortable with the notion of an interview, he liked to think of it as a conversation. Studs had a radio program on WFMT in Chicago for 40 years, but before that there was a program heard on public radio stations around the country, when public radio was just finding his legs. I heard him in Boston, and I thought I’d like to know this man; I worked in the radio business, and I was able to persuade somebody in Chicago to talk to me about working at WFMT so that is how I got to meet Studs. I was in a large part moved and interested in Chicago because of hearing him and his remarkable way of talking with people of all kinds. He was very very clever; Studs were very clever. He had people to realize that this was a friendly event, and they needn't be shy or intimidated by it, he was genuinely interested in what they had to say and that’s why in the end he had such successful conversations because people knew he was honestly interested in who they were and how they lived their lives. And he had funny little techniques pretending that he couldn’t get the tape recorder to work and getting them involved in helping get the tape started which meant that they were more equals than someone getting interviewed by an interviewer they were participants. I was lucky because I helped Studs and worked with him over a couple of decades and would often be invited to go along as he would see people around the country. Like a lot of men in his generation who grew up in cities, he never learned to drive a car, so if I had no other importance at least I could drive. I was lucky to be able to participate in this and so it’s a pleasure for me to be able to talk about Studs. Those experiences also made for stories because I then had stories to tell about the experience of being at the side of a master recorder of American and as you say Worldwide voices. The books that result from Studs interviews, his conversations are extraordinary and probably not being read as much as they once were, and that’s a shame. Previous Next

< Back McKenna's Story McKenna describes her love of gymnastics in this story. The lessons it taught her and the people she met along the way are invaluable to her, and she will carry these lessons with her throughout the rest of her life. 00:00 / 03:21 McKenna: The reason that my mother put myself and my two younger siblings in gymnastics, um, was because my younger brother, who is three years younger than me, he always used to stand on his head in his car seat, um, like, as my mom would buckle everybody in. My siblings are twins, so getting everybody in the car was an ordeal because she didn't have enough hands to possibly buckle everyone in at once. And my brother would always slip on to his head in his booster seat and hold himself up there, and kind of swing around. And there were a couple close calls of him, you know, making some choices that maybe weren’t the safest for him. My mom put us into gymnastics, because she thought, you know, that this would be a safe place for them to learn how to be monkeys and not get hurt. Uh, and maybe not to put themselves in a headstand in the car seat. My brother, after - he did gymnastics only for a few years with us in the very beginning, and he quickly decided that that wasn't for him. And my mom for the most part was our chauffeur, here, there, and everywhere for gymnastics, um, although they both always made a point - sometimes, my sister and I had different meets, and we’d be in different places, so they would have to separate out for those meets. I think that, as I got older, a lot of my friends stopped doing it competitively, so I was - at one point I was like the oldest girl in the gym, other than one other girl who is a year younger than me by, like, a landslide. And, so. At that point in time - I don't know. I felt a little disconnected from my peers in that moment, but. Gymnastics is very physically demanding and, I mean, I dislocated my hip when I was thirteen and I tore some tendons in my ankle at 17. And there were days that I - there were 100% days where I was like, “Why am I doing this? Why am I here? I could be with my friends, I could be doing this,” whatever that could be might have been. “Why am I here?” and I think the life lesson from pushing through those days, and looking back on it now, the character I have for that, and the grit that I learned to say, “Okay, I made this commitment.” Some of my very greatest life lessons-and I constantly reflect back on things I learned from doing gymnastics-as like, you know, okay, back up and take a breather and we approach the situation as like, life skills as opposed to just physical sports skills. I learned a lot from gymnastics in the physical sense but most in the, like emotional and mental well-being and awareness sense. That I, I think I was ready to part ways. I felt like I had, I had learned what I could as a person. And sure, I could have kept going and learned new skills, and sure, I could have, if I really wanted to, have gone further with it but I just, I came to a point that I knew my body was not gonna be able to keep going. But, gymnastics was the first place that had an understanding that family could be more than just blood related. You come to college and you kind of have your home away from home or your home in a person more so than a place kind of thing and I learned that from gymnastics. Previous Next

< Back Sasha's Story Sasha talks about her relationship with her Aunt and how she inspired her to be strong, powerful, and resilient and to appreciate the values that they share. 00:00 / 01:36 The person I wanted to talk about was my aunt so my aunt is my mom's older sister of 9 years and she's probably the most inspirations person I have ever met in my entire life so she was a chef who lived in Manhattan New York and she was in such a male dominated career and a lot of the other family members that I have are men who are also chefs so she at thanksgiving she was always fighting people on who the best pie was and who made the best pie and who got to make the turkey cause she was just so confident and she she was never arrogant but she knew what she was good at and she knew that she could do better than most of my uncles and she did the reason that my aunt stuck out to me so much is because I think we are so similar and definitely growing up she was someone that I went to a lot for just challenges that I had in my life i think that we both grew up with a learning disability so to be able to talk to her about kind of the struggles and embarrassments that I had in at that point it was 10 years in school but all that time and she was able to kind of give me confidence and i mean looking at her now she was so successful and I I was like I can do that then honestly being at UMass now like I think about her a lot when things are really hard and when i see myself I fortunately see a lot of her strong amazing qualities reflecting back so my aunt unfortunately passed in november of 2017 and I think that talking about her is something that I need to do more so this has been really helpful on all of our walks but because i think about her a lot but i think talking about it is a lot more helpful so i like what i see in myself when it reflect my aunt and i am glad that i had the opportunity to talk about her Previous Next

Charlie's Story Charlie reflects on how he values his experiences with people who he met through his jobs throughout the course of his life. Scroll to Listen Charlie's Story 00:00 / 03:34 Charlie: But the thing that life has taught me is that life is about people. So, everything you do is an opportunity to meet someone. And I've never met anyone who didn't have something to offer. Some more than others. I don't know that I met anyone who had a dramatic effect on my life's path. But because of my role as a newspaper publisher, I got to meet lots of folks, people who were extraordinary people and some of them were presidents of colleges in the valley of five college communities. One of my favorites was Mary Maples down at Smith College, who I would work with. But she was just wonderful to get to know and to work with. At one point I was talking with somebody at and I don't know a meeting at the newspaper and we were talking about going fishing and she said, “what about me? Aren't you gonna take me?” And so in those days I flew with a small plane and we flew down the road island, got on a boat and went out and fished and my deal was I had to deliver her, she had to speak at an alumni group in New York city. So I had to drop her off from New York on my way home. So she was very special. But wherever you are people, as I say, I've never met somebody who didn't have something to offer and whether it's somebody driving a cab or doesn't make any difference. You know, you meet important people and not so important people. And one of my favorite important people stories has to do with Silvio Conte, who was a representative in Washington from this area. I got to know him through the newspaper and I would go to him for things that needed to be done in Washington. I would lobby him, for instance, when I was at the local hospital board, I would ask him to try and be helpful to the hospital. And he called me one day. He says “I helped you. I want you to help me.” And I said, “what?” He said, “my daughter lives here in Washington who works here, and it breaks my heart because she has this wonderful dog. But the dog sits in an apartment all day long and I'm trying to get her to get rid of the dog.” So my wife Kelly and I flew down to Washington, picked up the Brittany spaniel and his daughter would come and visit from time to time. So we had the best of both worlds. The key for me has always been you get far more out of helping people than the time and energy that it takes. So it's a win-win situation.

Edie Kirk shares stories with Elise Boehm about her mother. She starts off by talking about her family’s background and her mother growing up. She then shares a story about how her mother became a nurse and shares other stories that show why she admires her mother so much. Edie's Story Edie Kirk shares stories with Elise Boehm about her mother. She starts off by talking about her family’s background and her mother growing up. She then shares a story about how her mother became a nurse and shares other stories that show why she admires her mother so much. Scroll to listen Edie's Story 00:00 / 04:18

< Back Grazy's Story Grazy discusses how her family's immigration to the United States impacted her upbringing and her values and experiences in the U.S. 00:00 / 05:10 “I wanted to start my story off with my Dad immigrating from Brazil to the United States. He did this in 1989. At first he came to the U.S. to send money back to my mom and my sister that were back in Brazil, and he was just here working, and he thought he might as well just immigrate our family over to the States. They came over in 99’ and that’s when I was born too in the U.S. I think their experience of being immigrants here was definitely one that had an impact on me growing up. I think that they had a lot of troubles with just being in a new place in general. I think moving, period, is hard, I can’t imagine having to move from one country to another where it’s hard to get used to new people around you, new surroundings. Growing up I always had that in the back of my mind of the sacrifices my parents made to come over here and just their story of pushing forward just to better my future, my sister future, my brothers future by being here. I think their pushing through in this country definitely motivated me, I feel like it adds pressure for you to feel like you always have to succeed, you always feel like you have to do good, you always have to hit different milestones and always work your way up and I would always feel pressure, not because my parents would necessarily put it on me but, I would always think back to them sacrificing their whole life to come to the U.S., and the U.S. is seen as like the land of opportunity, there’s this overall message of if you immigrated to the U.S. you are lucky, you are allowed in the borders. I think today it is definitely a lot harder to immigrate here than when my parents did it, but I think that there’s this message of immigrants are sort of second class citizens almost, because goes Americans just have a leg over everyone. I think being born here, I just thought “Oh ok I have to succeed, I have to make my parents trip here worthwhile.” and it was a lot of pressure growing up and it felt, it felt like I was never reaching that finish line of “Ok I made it.” It was always something else, and I feel like growing up now I can look back and say that all that I have accomplished, it was the best I could do at that time and, my parents were always proud of me and whatever I did, every milestone I hit, every little award that I got, I knew my parents knew that I pushed myself. Especially with them seeing me struggle in school, every grade I got I know they knew it was my best. But it’s hard to feel like youre never enough and, if anything, growing up here made me appreciate things more. I feel like one of the gifts they’ve given me is empathizing with others and having more sympathy for others. I think it’s something that of course if you’re not from a family of people that immigrated, of course you can feel for others, you sort of, view immigration issues differently, you see how the countries government works differently in a way, I just feel like you view people differently. I would never think of someone as an alien to this country, and so many people are so ok with saying that term in referring to people and their stories that way. The majority of my dad’s life has been spent in the U.S., and for someone to look at him and think “Oh he doesn’t belong here”, he’s contributed so much, and everyone contributes so much with what they bring culturally to the U.S. when they are from outside of the U.S., like so much of our food is from different cultures and the U.S., I think we wouldn’t be what we are today without these people.” Previous Next

< Back Saddaf's Story Saddaf talks about the role religion played in her life growing up and now, discovering it for herself, she talks about how she struggles with it in college. She touches upon navigating two identities being a first-generation Pakistani Muslim American. 00:00 / 04:57 Previous Next

< Back Bert's Story, Spring 2022 Roberta Liebman shares with Alisson Aleman the remarkable role that neighborhood organizations have played in some of the most significant moments of her life. They have provided her and her family with support and companionship through some of the most challenging moments. 00:00 / 04:15 I think my story began about fifteen years ago, my son and his wife who lived in California, they both by a bizarre coincidence were diagnosed with brain tumors. They were different types but they were serious. And my son Jamie recognized that they were going to be in big trouble. They didn’t have a lot of resources to help them and they were both needing brain surgery. So Jamie spoke to some friends and said we’re gonna need help and the friends said, okay, we’ll do it. And they made sure that whenever food was needed, whenever a ride was needed to the doctor someone was there to help them. Someone was even there to help them sort through the pile of mail. And all of that was incredibly helpful to a family that was in terrible shape. It was this neighborhood that took care of them. When it was over, we were struck by how extraordinary it was that people just rallied around to help and lend support. And about that time, some of our neighbors began saying you know we can have an organization and we would help eachother, are you interested? And we had just had this extraordinary demonstration of how effective it could be so we said of course, yes we would. And my husband Ernie was on the board and he helped deal with some of the finances. I helped with a number of volunteer things, I had been a volunteer in many other situations and it was beautiful. And then the organization grew, people began really recognizing what a fine thing this was. Unfortunately, Ernie’s health was not great and our house was not safe so we had to move. We moved here to Northampton, our son and daughter in-law made us comfortable, they were living upstairs. But people here began saying you know have you heard of this village-to-village network maybe we should have something like Northampton Neighbors. Well, we had already seen this was a really good idea. So, of course we said yes. And we both prepared to be volunteers, except Ernie wasn’t doing very well and I fell down. I had to say I need some help. My arm is broken, I can’t drive to therapy. And boom, Northampton Neighbors was there and it turned out to be the nicest possible way to meet people in my community as well as to receive the help I desperately needed. I think it’s very easy to offer help, it’s really fun to be a volunteer. The thing that's hard are to learn to accept is to ask for help, we’re expected to be independent and to take care of ourselves. And to recognize that it is okay to say I need help. You know there is a certain level of isolation that older people experience, and making it possible for people to join a group where there all kind of social activities, there’s physical activities, there’s even a group called, I think it’s called FIG for food information group. But, I think it broadens the whole sense of how we all work together and how we all need each other. Previous Next

< Back Susy's Story, 2022 Susy talks about her want for a child and how it led her to her experience with international adoption in Peru as a single woman. She discussed the impact of negative cultural views on adoption and how it impacted her experience as a parent. She then discusses the importance of belonging and the need for people to share their stories. 00:00 / 04:52 Previous Next

Ivana shares a vulnerable story about her battle with anxiety and depression as a young adult in high school. She talks about how her experiences have influenced who she is today and memorializes this struggle with a tattoo on her back. Ivana's Story Ivana shares a vulnerable story about her battle with anxiety and depression as a young adult in high school. She talks about how her experiences have influenced who she is today and memorializes this struggle with a tattoo on her back. Ivana's Story 00:00 / 04:12 There is a saying, I'm not sure if you've come across it, where when it goes: “Trauma builds character”. And I definitely feel like that is something that is very true for me and how I've been able to see the world differently. There were a lot of traumatic things that I was exposed to at a young age and then also experienced myself. And I feel like the culmination of all of that led to a very, very dark point that started in high school, my junior year. That was when I first realized what anxiety was and what depression was because the symptoms were actually starting to appear within myself. And it took a lot of solitude and because… When I was going through a lot of that stuff in high school, I felt like I couldn't have any, or I didn't have anybody that I could turn to. And for a while, I wholeheartedly owed my existence for me still being here to my sister, honestly, because during that same period where I felt like I couldn't rely on my parents or couldn't rely on my friends and stuff and I kind of in turn only relied on myself. My sister, I didn't even ask her to help me - she kind of just saw and she offered her help. And I feel like that was the first person that really like listened to me, tried to really find resources to get me in treatment and stuff. My sister also has like a very mature mentality as well. So I feel like there's conversations that I was able to have - that she would be able to contribute to in a way that a lot of other people couldn't. And I think it got to a point of me realizing that a lot of what I was feeling was consequences of certain habits that I was either doing or certain habits that I had in terms of my mindset and stuff. So I went through a very transitional period of trying to really fix my mind and instead of have it be an enemy, turn it into my friend. And now that I think about it, I feel like this habit was something that was kind of enforced in me because I wasn't an athlete for so long. Like we would have to go back, for example, on my basketball team, we would have certain days where we would go watch films from my previous games and stuff like that. And at that point, you're literally going through past mistakes that you made, your coach is telling you what you did wrong, and here's how to fix it for the next time. And I feel like it could be as simple as that for situations. And I feel like that is my intention of wanting to share my story. One, I never thought that life would be like this. There was a good year/two-year period where I thought by the time I was 18, that would have been the end of my life. I'm very blessed every single day to be living the life that I do and to have the opportunity to experience life in the way that I do. I feel like I would not have been able to want to have this for everybody in life until I was able to learn a lot of things through solitude and go through those hard times to become more empathetic and become more emotionally understanding and being able to be more gracious to people and stuff. I do have a tattoo on my back that says, no rain, no flowers. And that is a tattoo that I live by because especially from that hard period of time, I'm able to experience true beauty now. And you cannot experience the beauty of flowers without having a little rain. Previous Next