Living through a global pandemic has a lot of us thinking about the past, the future, and how quickly our lives can change. It inspired Jaimie Schapker's family to learn about and preserve their history, by recording a Zoom call with their grandpa who lives in an assisting living facility in Ohio.
They asked him questions about his life, his work and his family, and they all had such a good time, they did it again. And again.
Now they check in once a week about how the kids are doing in school, who's having a birthday, and how they're trying to find scraps of normalcy where they can. Grandpa talks about how his residence hall is adapting to social distancing, what he had for dinner, and how badly he needs a haircut (same, Grandpa!).
What started as an effort to preserve their family history ended up making them all feel more connected in the present — and creating a snapshot of the history we're all living through right now.
We want you to be part of our Little Things project!
Take one to three minutes to and tell us your name, whatever else you want to share about yourself, and what little thing is keeping you going these days. Here are three ways to do it:
- Record a voice memo or video on your phone ( here’s how) and send it to littlethings@wfpl.org.
- Record a video on your phone and send it to littlethings@wfpl.org (you don’t have to appear in the video if you don’t want to — we just need the audio).
- Or call (502) 814-6560 and leave us a voice mail (this has the lowest audio quality, but we’ll make it work!).
Then stay tuned — throughout the winter, we’ll share some on the radio and at wfpl.org/littlethings.
