Project to let Mainers tell - and save

TO PARTICIPATE

REGISTRATION: Starts Aug. 17

APPOINTMENTS: To schedule, call (800) 850-4406 or visit StoryCorps' Web site, www.storycorps.net.

Over the past two years, Johanna Greenberg has devoted countless hours to helping local bands and groups tell their stories.

But in a month, the 17-year-old producer at WMPG's Blunt Youth Radio Project will get the chance to interview a subject she's known all her life: her mother.

StoryCorps, a national oral history project, will be at Portland's Congress Square from Aug. 31 to Sept. 25, giving area residents the opportunity to preserve their stories for archiving in the Library of Congress.

Any pair of people can preregister for an appointment in StoryCorps' "mobilebooth," a '50s-style trailer that has been converted into a soundproof studio. A facilitator will help guide a 40-minute interview, and the pair will immediately receive one copy on CD to take home.

If the pair agrees, a second copy will be sent to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and the most interesting and notable interviews may be played on National Public Radio.

To make an appointment, interested pairs can call (800) 850-4406 or go online to the project's Web site, www.storycorps.net. Registration for the approximately 160 available appointments in Portland begins Thursday.

For a requested $10 donation, a pair of siblings, co-workers, friends or even minor acquaintances can be a part of this grassroots approach to oral history, said StoryCorps coordinator Alexandra Middleton.

"StoryCorps wants to capture the stories of everyday Americans, and this means visiting cities both large and small," she said. "We hope our project paints a true picture of the different stories that are out there to be told."

The project began in October 2003, when a permanent booth was erected in New York City's Grand Central Terminal. In May 2005, the mobilebooth began touring the country and has since visited 45 communities in 31 states.

Since the project began nearly three years ago, almost 8,000 interviews have been conducted, Middleton said. The booth's 26-day stint in Portland marks the first time StoryCorps has been in Maine.

At every host city, the project partners with a local public radio station. WMPG's Blunt Youth Radio Project is hosting the event in Portland, a thrilling opportunity for the youth group, said Claire Holman, founder and director of the radio program.

"Normally, a local NPR branch serves as the local partner with StoryCorps, but we're the first youth organization and community radio project to be able to do this," she said.

The youth radio program jumped at the chance to be involved with StoryCorps, as the two have parallel missions of publicizing voices that are not usually heard or understood, Holman said.

"We felt that it was a good fit," she said. "We both look to engage groups that are usually just the audience - not the subject."

As an active member of the Blunt Radio Project, Greenberg heard about the opportunity and spoke to her mother about participating. She said she hopes to get more insight into her mother's life before she had children.

"I guess I kinda feel that there are some things I don't really know about her that I really want to find out - how she was before I was born, her life, her time," she said. "I immediately wanted to partake in it."

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