Spreading Resilience Through Storytelling, in Chaffee County, CO

What you see as you drive through Chaffee County, Colorado, is beauty—nearby snowcapped mountain peaks, clear blue skies more days than not, and aspen forests. What you don’t usually see is the struggle many people face to find housing, feed their children, and tackle all of the challenges raised during the long months of COVID-19.

Chaffee County Public Health and Environment’s Housing + Health hosted two StoryCenter-led online digital storytelling workshops in late 2020 and early 2021, to gather stories of resilience from a mix of adults and youth. The story topics range from youth dealing with the loss of a parent, to a family’s struggle with Lyme Disease, to racial discrimination, anorexia, and finding a sense of identity through sports, nature, and the outdoors.

Once the workshops had been completed, Chaffee County Housing + Health spread the word throughout the community about an opportunity for residents to come together online to watch all of the stories, while being treated to dinner from local restaurants. The event was hugely successful. After the stories were screened, some of the storytellers answered questions from the audience about their experience of making their videos. At the end of the evening, the audience left feeling moved by the stories, less isolated in their own struggles, and inspired by the courage and honesty of the storytellers. Watch Daniel Allison’s story below, and view the entire selection of stories on our YouTube Channel now.