Concentric stories: New initiative eases process for telling pandemic story

The stories are part of Our Story NH, a project funded with a grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. McPhee is an adjunct professor of public health at Southern New Hampshire University, and Durzy, who previously worked with the Department of Health and Human Services, is a consultant doing public health and equity work. As co-leaders of Our Story NH, they approach storytelling through a public health perspective, as a way to help people process their experiences, while also creating a record of life during the pandemic.

Since 2021, McPhee and Durzy have collected more than 100 stories from New Hampshire residents who they met through on-site story stations and virtual storytelling workshops.

But they’d like to increase that number. Recently, they launched an online form that allows people to share their stories quickly by answering fill-in-the-blank style questions from their computer. This approach is called the Concentric Stories Initiative.

“They are all responding to the same prompts,” McPhee said. “Each one is going to be unique and beautiful. They intersect, in different ways.”

The form only takes a few minutes to fill out. McPhee and Durzy hope that will lower a barrier that keeps people from sharing their stories.

“We recognize that people’s time is so valuable and hard to come by,” McPhee said.

The launch of the new initiative coincides with the third anniversary of the pandemic state of emergency declaration, coming up on March 13.

That milestone, McPhee said, is a perfect time for people to reflect on their experiences.

People who participate in the concentric Stories Initiative will have the option to share their stories on the Our Story NH website or with press partners, including the Granite State News Collaborative. But they can also opt to keep their stories private.

So far, only about 60% of participants with Our Story NH have chosen to include their stories in the historical archive that will come out of the project. That’s OK, because the first priority of the project is to make space for telling stories, which can be healing in and of itself, Durzy said.

However, those who choose to share, provide a powerful testament to this time in New Hampshire’s history.

“All of the data in the world hasn’t been as impactful to thinking about what we did right and what we did wrong, as listening to these first-person accounts from people,” Durzy said.

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These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.