Bigger Picture Moment: {Preserving "I Love You"}

Have you ever heard of StoryCorps ? It is a nonprofit organization, founded in NYC in 2003 whose mission is to provide people with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of their lives. Over the past 7 years StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000 interviews from more than 60,000 participants all around the country. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

The heart of StoryCorps is the conversation between two people who know each other and are important to each other: a son asking his mother about her childhood, an immigrant telling his friend about coming to America, or a couple reminiscing on their 50th wedding anniversary.

While they are based in NYC, they have locations in Atlanta and San Francisco, and mobile projects that travel around the country...maybe you have heard of them, or maybe you have even recorded a story.  Perhaps you have heard some of the interviews that are broadcast on NPR every Friday morning...they can be quite moving.

One of their new initiatives is the creation of a series of animated short films set to audio taken from actual recorded interviews. I am posting this one today because I found it so beautiful and inspiring I had to share.  I hope you will find 5 minutes to watch and listen to the love story of Danny, an OTB clerk, and Annie, a nurse, as they remember their life together—from their first date to Danny's final days with terminal cancer.  It reminds me of how important it is to enjoy each day and not forget to tell the important people in our lives just how much we love them.  (it is best to watch in full screen so you can read the words, just click on the arrows on the right side of the gray bar on the bottom, to the right of the letters "HD").  Warning, it made me cry a little.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Check out other Bigger Picture Moments over at Life Set To Words.