“Humans of Lorain County” series creates a living scrapbook of resident stories
Leader
Bobby Taylor
Location
176 Timberlane Drive Elyria, OH 44035
“Humans of Lorain County” Series Creates a Living Scrapbook of Resident Stories
Stories have the power to unite us all in our common humanity.
When I started the “Humans of Lorain County” Facebook page, I had an idea what I wanted to do, but I had no idea what to expect. The basic framework is simple: one picture, one person, one story, told every week. Telling the story of a real person can transform the oversized into human-scale. An actual person’s experience can take an abstract issue, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, or a far-distant conflict and convert it into something understandable and relatable. Stories like these create and strengthen relationships, bolster small businesses, attract and retain talent and investment, and cultivate a sense of pride in their communities if consistently told over time.
My wife and I are committed to sharing one story per week that highlights a local member of our community and their story. Although the process is simple, this kind of storytelling isn’t easy work. But our community is worth it. We are willing to take up the commitment needed to tell the stories of the people who have risked, sacrificed, and overcome to create better places for us to live.
We launched Humans of Lorain County as a personal project with limited resources, but after only a few posts, realized it has the potential to spotlight humanity. My hope is that this sort of breaks down barriers. COVID hit and everyone sort of isolated themselves, but even before that I don’t know if, as a community, we really were neighborly. My hope is we become more neighborly. More communal. Not so negative. Not feel so alone.”
This campaign reflects the county's heart and its melting pot of cultures. Through images and his subjects' own stories, Humans of Lorain County will communicate not just vulnerability to fear, sadness, and anger but also resilience, strength, hope, tolerance, and perseverance. We look at Humans of Lorain County as our “stone soup” after the popular African folklore of a community bringing together what they have to feed everybody. We welcome submissions of 500 word stories and/or interview requests at: [email protected].
Our project is based on the success of the Humans of New York (HONY) campaign.
The HONY site, launched in 2010 by photographer Brandon Stanton, was intended as a photography project to depict 10,000 New Yorkers on the street. Eventually it morphed into a blog, including quotes and eventually short vignettes of their lives. It has now grown to 20 million followers on social media and has spawned two bestselling books.
