Stories of AC: Tales of Success, Hardships and Resilience

We’re thrilled to announce that the first articles were published for Stories of Atlantic City, a collaborative-journalism project focused on restorative narrative.

The project’s premise is simple: A group of community members scoured Atlantic City looking for untold stories of resiliency in a city that has been battered by bad news for the last decade, and a group of media partners committed to tell those stories.

Five media partners in the project have published 10 stories and videos  —  all of which were originally selected and pitched to the journalists by a team of community partners.

Those stories include:

• Press of Atlantic City: When Baseball Was Atlantic City’s Pastime
• Route 40: ‘Best Barber in the World’
• Route 40: Where the American Dreamers Work
• Breaking AC: Growing Success from Atlantic City Roots
• SJNtv: The ‘Sea’ Glass Is Half Full
• Stockton University: Mentors Guide the Next Generation in Atlantic City
• Stockton University: After Decade, ‘Back Sov’ Skatepark Wheels Hope into Atlantic City
• Stockton University: Taking Atlantic City Jazz History into the Future Through Music Education
• Stockton University: Overcoming Mental Health Stigma Through Holistic Healing in Atlantic City

All the stories are also featured on the project’s website, storiesofatlanticcity.com.

The people featured in these stories will come together next week for a storytellers event at The Leadership Studio. That launch party on May 21 is open to the public; RSVP via Facebook here.

Stories of resilience and strength

Stories of Atlantic City is a collaborative restorative-narrative series. It’s an initiative that grew out of Free Press’ News Voices work in Atlantic City in 2015 and culminated in a partnership in 2018 between Free Press, the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, Stockton University, Images and Voices of Hope (ivoh), a group of engaged community members and five local-media outlets.

Stories of Atlantic City was made possible by grants made to Stockton University and the Center for Cooperative Media by the NJ Community News and Information Fund at the Community Foundation of New Jersey, a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The Center for Cooperative Media, Free Press, Stockton University and The Leadership Studio are co-managing the project.

We hope you’ll read the stories produced by the partners in this project and consider attending the launch party if you can make it. To learn more about the project, also consider reading these two posts:

• Workshop Connects Atlantic City Residents and Reporters
• Stories of Atlantic City Launches

Then early this summer, the Center for Cooperative Media and Free Press will publish a full case study and evaluation and behind-the-scenes video about Stories of Atlantic City, to hopefully inspire similar collaborations in other cities across the United States.

This piece originally appeared in Medium.