By Anne Feist, Boulder Valley Spellbinders® www.Spellbinders.org
On the morning of April 12th, 2019 over 100 Spellbinders® from all around Colorado converged at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden, for the Spellbinders Annual Meeting. Through the art of oral storytelling Spellbinders® enhances literacy, encourages character development and builds intergenerational community.
Pictured are the volunteer members of Spellbinders® who love storytelling and embrace the joy and power of stories. We believe that oral storytelling is the natural avenue to help children develop literacy skills by engendering a love of stories, both oral and written. We also hold that storytelling builds connections between generations.
This 501(c) (3) non-profit promotes healthy aging through the civic engagement of older adults while improving children’s literacy. Spellbinders® core program is training individuals, at least 90% of whom are 50 and older, in the art of oral storytelling and placing these individuals as volunteer storytellers in their local schools. Storytellers return to the same classrooms each month, forming mentoring relationships with children that last throughout the year, and often continue for several years.
Storytelling brings literacy, art, multi-cultural ideas, inspiration and the human touch to both older adults and eager young listeners. While Spellbinders target populations are both the older adult storytellers and the young listeners, ultimately the whole community benefits when intergenerational gaps are filled with love and the art of storytelling. As the Spellbinders® program is intergenerational, our key collaborative partners are the 287 schools that we serve.
Spellbinders® volunteer storytellers foster awareness of the importance of virtues such as mutual respect, integrity, perseverance, empathy and cooperation. It is their pleasure to bring wisdom, value, humor and a sense of community to their multi-generational listeners.