The Laura (Riding) Jackson Foundation has partnered with the Gifford Historical Museum and Cultural Center to help teens learn the process of interviewing members of the community and documenting their stories. Teens Listen: An Oral History Project is a project that engages students in our community in an experience that will develop skills of interviewing and listening by recording the significant views adults have about living in this community.

We have enlisted teacher mentors in each high school to help us recruit, train, and schedule our young student interviewers. We’ll take students through the process of learning how to interview, how to document those interviews and how to reflect on what they learn in the process.

Students will produce a video of their recorded interview, which will be built into a local documentary film that shares the stories we collect, as well as written reflections, which will be published together in a physical book.

In addition to continue to interview Gifford Pioneers and women in the C-suite, we plan to add veterans, “river folk,” and others to our growing list of storytellers.

To be eligible, students must:

  • Be in 9-12th grade
  • Reside in or attend school in Indian River County

Would you like to be a part of Teens Listen?

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Anthony Nannetti

An Essential Worker Opines She was waiting in line Masked and standing on a floor decal As I rang out preceding customers Hoping she would …

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Rikki Santer

Landmark The train like a wailing pronoun in the dark breath of night when quarantine responds to quarantine and I ask myself how do I …

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Michelle Sharkey

Pandemic Hands Moments between hands Lockets of memories Lesson of Life Palm reading in real time Pandemic hands Hands in a flurry, hurried hands A …

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Christina Kilby

Safekeeping Where do all the touches go for safekeeping? If I could collect them in a jar Like a child’s treasure I’d bury them in …

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Jennifer Shniederman

As the Crow Flies The black crow surveys what will be hers While I walk empty streets and boulevards Playing the waiting game. The crows, …