[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 67 (Friday, April 29, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E641]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               STORYCORPS

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                          HON. EARL BLUMENAUER

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 29, 2016

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, as the founder and co-chair of the 
Public Broadcasting Caucus and a strong supporter of public media and 
federal funding for humanities, I would like to raise awareness of 
StoryCorps. As one of the largest oral history projects, StoryCorps 
invites people from across the country to record and preserve their 
stories for future generations within their archive at the American 
Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps recently arrived 
on Capitol Hill and is welcoming individuals to record, preserve, and 
share their stories at their MobileBooth recording venue, which will be 
parked outside of the Library of Congress until May 15, 2016.
  Since 2003, generous support from the Corporation for Public 
Broadcasting and others has enabled StoryCorps to collect over 65,000 
stories from more than 110,000 participants in all 50 states. They 
record interviews at various venues across the country, including at 
their MobileBooth, which tours the nation year-round. StoryCorps also 
shares excerpts of collected interviews with a national audience of 
millions through weekly broadcasts on NPR, broadcasts on local public 
media stations in towns and cities across the country, animated shorts 
on PBS, and via digital media and bestselling books. StoryCorps' work 
has been widely recognized with several George Foster Peabody Awards, a 
MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, and most 
recently, the 2015 TED Prize.
  All StoryCorps' activities are carried out in collaboration with 
local and national partners. Each year, StoryCorps partners with 
hundreds of community-based organizations from across the country--
including local schools, public libraries, local public media stations, 
hospitals, veterans' affairs centers, and others--to record, preserve, 
and share the stories of their constituents. In these ways, StoryCorps 
is promoting a deeper understanding--both historic and contemporary--of 
people living in diverse communities that contribute to our nation's 
rich diversity. This important work would not be possible without 
federal support of public broadcasting, and I urge my colleagues to 
continue their support.
  I also hope that my colleagues and their staff will have time to 
visit the StoryCorps MobileBooth at the Library of Congress in the 
coming days to learn more and participate.

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