Wichita library enlists coffee shops to aid in its collection of local COVID-19 stories
The Wichita Public Library is trying to collect Wichita’s COVID-19 stories, and it’s gotten several local coffee shops in on the project.
Starting this week, people who pick up coffee at eight local coffee shops — including popular stops like Reverie Coffee Roasters and Leslie Coffee Co. — will get special coffee sleeves asking for help with the library’s project, which has been underway since November.
The sleeves are printed with instructions for how people and businesses can share stories about how COVID-19 affected their lives and their livelihoods. The stories will be collected into a database that will live on the library’s website and that may inform future generations about what the COVID-19 pandemic was like for those who lived through it.
“It’s very important to capture it while it’s still a present event rather than in five years or 10 years from now,” said Sarah Kittrell, the Collection Development and Division manager for the library. “We need to get that as much as we can down now.”
The library applied for and received a matching $10,000 American Rescue Plan grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to launch the project and is using it to collect Wichita’s COVID-19 stories in a variety of ways.
Those willing to participate can fill out a survey posted on the library’s website that asks people to describe how the pandemic changed their lives. They also can submit photos that show what life has looked like during the two years since the pandemic started.
The library also is trying to collect at least 30 oral history interviews and will soon reach out to key people in the community for sit-down conversations that will be recorded.
Lots of individuals in Wichita have already taken the survey, Kittrell said, and she’s also had people submit journals, poems, even a podcast. But her goal is to collect thousands more stories. She’s particularly interested in hearing from businesses — especially local restaurants — about how the pandemic affected them.
“We want to hear from everyone,” she said. “If I had my way, 400,000 people would fill this out and it would be overflowing with information.”
The survey takes about 30 minutes to complete, Kittrell said, but there’s no obligation to fill out the whole thing. She’s interested in all types of responses, even from people who say the pandemic really didn’t affect them.
The coffee cup sleeves, paid for by the Wichita Community Foundation, include a QR code that will take people directly to the survey. The sleeves are just a unique way to get the word out about the project and encourage participation, Kittrell said. They’re similar in spirit to the sleeves the foundation sponsored in October 2020, which were used to remind Wichitans to vote.
In addition to Reverie and Leslie Coffee Co., the sleeves are being used at Espresso to Go Go, Placeholder Coffee, Better Yet Coffee, Sunflower Espresso, Watermark Cafe and Milkfloat.
.jpg "unnamed (2).jpg")
Collecting the stories is important not only to document history, Kittrell said, but also to put the pandemic into context for those who lived through it.
“It was occasionally a tense time over the last two years,” she said. “And we think this could potentially be a way to foster insight into what other people were thinking during that time frame and perhaps build common bridges. I may not have agreed with this person on this, but I absolutely understand what they were going through.”
For more information about the library’s “Tell Your Story” project, visit www.wichitalibrary.org/tell-your-story
.jpg)