As the founder and main storyteller of EverydayEpics.com, I pursue a variety of offline projects to better understand and respond to the story of need.

 

Stories & “Story”

• Editorial Calendar – My main project where EverydayEpics.com is concerned is planning how to tell the story of need in the near and distant future. Feel free to browse through the themes and topics I plan to cover in the first quarter of 2012.
• Powers: The Serial – Read my series about the present-day story of need, told through the fictional lives of a cast of true-to-life characters.
• “Good News” – The existence of Everyday Epics is closely linked to my personal faith story, and by extension to the “gospel” or “good news” story told in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. The “Good News” project is a partly personal, partly professional effort to understand the context and appeal of that particular message, of what we think of as “good news” in today’s media-driven world, and of “story” in general. Through occasional posts on this site, I highlight my research, share my reading lists, integrate insights from history, literature and contemporary non-fiction, and summarize my discussions with others on this and related topics.

In addition to my online storytelling, I periodically share stories of need via discussions with and presentations to community groups. I also help facilitate a variety of on-the-ground efforts in and around my hometown of Broomfield, Colo. (Several of these projects are readily adaptable beyond Broomfield, as well.) I’m grateful to be able to work with a number of friends, volunteers and community partners in these efforts.

 

Community Needs

• “Curb” Kits — My family and I put together these kits of toiletries, non-perishable food and other useful items to give to people we see (literally) almost everyday on the side of the road. So far, several families, a homeschool co-op and girls at a birthday party have adopted this project by compiling kits of their own. (The kits are also featured on the Resources page.)
• The Sweep Report — The eight months I spent researching and writing about the most important trends affecting Broomfield County opened my eyes to the story of need in my own community. The report itself would not have been possible without the help, encouragement and facilitation of the report’s co-author Karen Smith of the Broomfield Community Foundation. Our 100-ish-page report incorporates quotes and information from dozens of interviews, a Spring 2011 focus group and extensive (mostly web-based) research to sketch the past, present and future of Broomfield, Colo. The main sections in the report are demographics, the environment, the economy, education and civic life, with particular attention paid in each of those sections to our neighbors in need. The report should be published sometime in early 2012.
• Broomfield Community Services Network (BCSN) – This is more about ongoing involvement on my part than a particular project, per se. Since late 2010, it’s been my privilege to participate in this informal network of local government professionals, non-profit leaders and local clergy. BCSN holds monthly meetings, connects regularly via email alerts and facilitates many of the ongoing efforts to serve people in need in Broomfield County.
• Meal at the Grange – My family and I are proud to call The Refuge our faith community home. I’m also proud to be in on the beginning stages of The Refuge’s effort to coordinate a mid-week, midday meal for area families in need. We’ve established a partnership with a local food pantry and hope to have the meal up and running at the Grange hall where we meet by sometime in January 2012.
• A “Sweep Network” – One of the fruits of our work on The Sweep Report has been an awareness of the need for a more user-friendly, useful and frequently updated community-wide resource guide, as well as a more efficient way to make both needs and resources known. This fledgling project, undertaken in partnership with The Broomfield Foundation, local faith communities, and partners from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Regis University, is an attempt to address those needs. Look for more details about this project in mid-2012.
• An “Encyclopedia” of Need – The wiki we created is our earliest attempt (from 2009) to provide a structure for cataloguing the story of need in the world today. While the energy for this project has been effectively transferred to the Sweep Network efforts we described above, our wiki remains ready to be updated and used. If you have the time and motivation to help coordinate entries on different problems, places or groups of people in need, or if you have the expertise to contribute a new entry or two, join the wiki directly and start updating.