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By ISAAC KESTENBAUM, News Assistant Thursday, April 5, 2007

Jody Fein of Gray helps people understand the value of a good story.

Fein is now holding workshops for adults and children at local preschools.

"I'm working with parents and teachers to help them feel more comfortable using storytelling in their work with kids," Fein said of her program, made possible by a grant from the "Early StARTS" initiative.

Funded through a partnership between the Maine Arts Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services, Early StARTS provides funding for, among other projects, artist residencies.

From late March until mid-May, Fein will work at Scribbles Preschool in Gray and Edes Fall Child Development in Naples, as well as in preschools in Portland and Rockland.

"I'm trying to help them understand the importance of storytelling," she said. "I want to take storytelling away from the idea that it's something a professional does. This is something that's a human connection; it's something that we all do and need to do more of."

A native of North Carolina, Fein holds a bachelor's degree in theater from Oberlin College and a master's degree in social work from Boston College. "I've done a lot of teaching and consulting in the early childhood field," she said.

For the last five years, she's been telling stories full time, she said. She tells stories at schools, festivals and libraries. "This really pulls together all my passions."

Fein believes it is important to tell stories to children "especially considering the media they're exposed to."

"I really think television and movies have become the new way of storytelling," she said. "It's really important to have oral storytelling as well. It's a much more intimate and personal way of telling stories."

Stories are a way to teach, Fein said.

"Storytelling has to do with communicating what's important about being human," she said. "It's the most basic way of saying, 'Here's something important that I need you to know.'"

One of her favorite children's stories concerns a tailor who makes his worn-out overcoat into a vest. When the vest wears out, he makes a smaller garment, and so on until the coat has become a button.

"He loses the button, but then he makes a story out of it," said Fein. "He makes something out of nothing."

For Fein, this story teaches about "being creative, resourceful, and never giving up."

At the end of the story, Fein urges her audience to tell the story to someone else. "A story can never wear out," she said.