(this post is by Liz Dreyer, who's working on the healthcare.storycapture.org site.)

We've begun working the Community HealthCorps, a project of VISTA.  They have an amazing, bright and dedicated group of people who are ....to put it their own words "Focused on indirect services, HealthCorps*VISTA members work to alleviate poverty by improving the capacity of health centers to provide quality health services and programs to medically underserved people."

We met with them a few weeks ago to see if any of the corps were interested in participating in our StoryCapture project. The response was overwhelming and the questions of how to make it work within their days interesting and relevant.  I have many of the same questions for myself -- in the midst of doing what needs to be done, how do I take the moment to log, document and capture what's going on, even though I know it's a really good idea.

I'm examing the template the corps is given and there's already a place to collect stories.  The web site highlights some of them.  We'll see if we can figure out a way to activate the team to find and highlight those compelling stories.

They're happening all around them.  One woman told us the story of a little boy running up to her.  She had placed kids from the Bronx into a camp in the country.  Most of the children had never been out of the city.  And this little boy ran up to her, threw his arms around her and said "I saw a real cow!"  That sentence says everything about why to tell these stories, I think.  Why they send the children to the camp and what kind of impact doing so can have.