The City of Savannah’s Municipal Archives department has selected a resident team for the Savannah Community Memory Project (SCMP) 2024 Residency. The Faith in Action resident team of Eric Darling, Mickey Youmans and Tom Kohler will focus their project on interfaith action across the city.

The primary collection method for the team is oral history interviewing. The Faith in Action team was selected through a competitive process that started in 2023 and their project will be completed in December. They started conducting interviews earlier this month and will continue to do so for the next several months.

Interviews are being done with a variety of community leaders in order to collect their stories for a more complete picture of the history in Savannah’s interfaith communities.

They will also be producing and hosting educational resources outside of their historical documentation. These include an educational website aimed at youth, a teacher curriculum training event, public discussions and more to go alongside the archival collection to be preserved in the Municipal Archives and available for public research use.

Savannah residents are encouraged to participate in this project through the online Faith in Action submission portal. The portal allows residents to submit Q&A style perspectives on the local interfaith communities using their own words. Resident submissions will be accepted through the month of August.

For more details on the project or the team members, and to access the submission portal, visit www.SavannahGA.gov/FaithInAction.

SCMP 2024 RESIDENCY TIMELINE
February-August: Online portal submissions window
February-September: Oral history interviews being conducted
February-September: Video edits (post-production)
September-November: Website, educational materials development
November-December: Archival collection transfer
December: Public panel discussion, Educational website launch, Teacher training sessions

This article appears in Connect Savannah I February 2024.