GISCorps volunteer takes Lee-Harvard Memorial Project’s StoryMap to the next level

Lee-Harvard Memorial Project (LHMP) is a community-driven initiative dedicated to preserving and celebrating the history, culture, and legacy of Cleveland’s Lee–Harvard neighborhood. The project aims to create a meaningful public memorial space that honors the contributions, resilience, and lived experiences of community members while strengthening local identity and historical awareness. Through storytelling, public engagement, art, and historical research, LHMP seeks to highlight the neighborhood’s significance and preserve its history for future generations. Central to the initiative is a collaborative approach that brings together residents, local leaders, historians, and artists to ensure the memorial authentically reflects the voices and experiences of the community.

To support this vision, LHMP worked with a university student that built a StoryMap. The collaboration demonstrated the capability of a StoryMap, however, they are now interested in further expanding the content and capabilities of the existing StoryMap. They are also very interested in becoming trained by the GISCorps volunteer to be able to sustain their platform on their own. Planned enhancements include embedding oral histories through audio and video recordings, incorporating short-form video content, and integrating historical and contemporary imagery with an interactive swipe functionality for before-and-after comparisons. In addition, LHMP would like to create opportunities for community members to contribute their own stories, photographs, and artifacts directly to the project. LHMP seeks support from a GISCorps volunteer to help enhance the interactive StoryMaps and add Survey123 forms to support these community engagement and storytelling efforts.

Following the recruitment, Alicia Tyson, GISCorps volunteer based in Colorado, is selected for this project.

Recruitment complete, project in progress.