The Stories of the St. Vrain group began collecting stories about water two years ago.
It has been a decade since heavy rains swept down the mountains and into nearby creeks, raising waters to 100-year flood levels. People across the Front Range lost their homes and businesses and the work to rebuild is ongoing today. Stories of the St. Vrain project is a two-year effort to “celebrate the human and environmental stories of the St. Vrain Creek,” said Maren Waldman, project spokesperson.
The Stories of the St. Vrain group began collecting stories about water two years ago. The group hosts booths at local events such as Cinco de Mayo and asks people to think about a memory or experience they had with water. Participants are encouraged to share their stories on postcards that are collected by the group.
“The idea is to listen to what people are saying — because part of the reason I am interested in working with water is because I know that as time goes on and climate change is real, us and the west are really going to have to look very closely at what we are doing with water,” Waldman said.
Over the years, Waldman has dedicated a lot of her energy to learning more about the future of water. She identified that climate change is an issue that has already begun impacting where our water comes from and how much is available. She also knows that population growth plays a significant role in the allocation of water.
“There is a gap between what the scientific and engineering community tends to know about what we need to do and the action people need to take,” Waldman said. “I foresee that the community is really going to have to come together and make difficult choices or change the values around how water is being used.”
These ideas prompted Waldman to join with others to educate the community about water, she said.
The Stories from the St. Vrain group pull out major themes from the stories and are in the process of codifying them. They hope to be able to present data from the community that expresses the relationships people have with water.
Additionally, the group is working on selling postcards that display the art children have created to tell their stories about water. People will be encouraged to write thank you notes on the postcards to the local ditch companies that aided the 2013 flood efforts, Waldman said.
On Sept. 9 from 1-4 p.m. the group will host a tenth anniversary event to commemorate the 2013 flood. The event will be held at Dickens Farm Nature Area and will be broken into focused segments. Professional performances in music, dance and poetry will be available from 1-2 p.m. A public picnic will be held from 2-3 p.m. in which community conversations will take place with local water leaders. The event will conclude with a community clean-up effort. The entire event is free and open to the public of all ages and abilities.
“By bringing people together across expertise, age, cultures, and through bringing them outside to Nature, this project tends the soul work of remembering Nature’s role in our lives individually and collectively; and the social work of learning what we need to do, alone and together, to take care of the wild places….so they, in return, take care of us,” Waldman said.
