A Playground Communication Board was awarded to Mrs. Anna Nowacki for all Briarwood Elementary School students (courtesy of Florham Park Education Foundation)

ing hardship or needs essential supplies, we have a Community Care program that they can reach out to, and we will support those families,” Seubert says. “It’s been primarily food and school supplies, but then we will try to get additional resources.”

The FPEF is always looking for additional volunteers and for donations. “We are fully funded through donations, and through donations to the foundation, you know exactly where your money is going. We are fully run through volunteers who choose to give their time to the education foundation,” Seubert says. “We have gratitude for whatever we receive, financial power or people power.”

If interested in sharing your time, talent, and expertise to the FPEF, please contact Seubert at fpef.president@ gmail.com. To donate or learn more, visit www.fpefnj.org

Unashamed of Hope: The Power of the Untold Stories Project

BY CHIP M. O’BRIEN STAFF WRITER

AREA - What’s the point of storytelling? What are stories for?

In early 2020, these questions held dire importance for the nonprofit organization Storytelling Arts, Inc. Before 2020, it had focused on bringing programs about folk tales to schools throughout NJ. Now the pandemic had shut down schools across the state.

Faced with an existential threat, Storytelling Arts questioned its core mission. “We had to ask ourselves, in times of Black Lives Matter and COVID-19, are folktales the most relevant way to use storytelling?” remembers Linda Helm Krapf, Executive Director of Storytelling Arts. “Or is it time for us to begin thinking about personal stories?”

The idea for a new direction came from an unexpected source. Krapf’s last flight before the COVID shutdown took her through the Denver Airport, where she spied a Desmond Tutu quote on a poster. It read,

“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

Krapf immediately recognized its relevance. “That told me we all have to get together and listen to one another,” she says. “Because the answers are with all of us together, not separate.”

The idea turned into an online storytelling event conducted over Zoom. Krapf describes the events as tentative, an experiment. Both storytellers and audiences enjoyed the personal stories program. When shutdown regulations receded, the concept reached its full incarnation as the Untold Stories of a Storied People project.

Phase One of the project began last year. A total of eight storytellers gathered from four NJ communities, Jersey City, Morristown, New Brunswick, and Trenton, to prepare for in-person performances. The project focused on people