Building Stronger Schools Through Storytelling
Americans All is now a community outreach and empowerment program.
Our revenue-generating multipurpose storytelling tool helps leaders,
at all levels, improve the mental, social and economic health of their constituents.
Despite our successful distribution of supplemental classroom resources to more than 2,000 schools and libraries nationwide, we aim to stay clear of the divisive politics that are now affecting the teaching of social studies in many school districts. We now focus on providing students with resources that can support their participation in non-curriculum school activities. We have also repurposed our unique storytelling tool to enable students to help families that lost a member(s) to COVID-19 to gain closure and to permanently preserve the memories, contributions, and achievements of their loved one(s). We also need to recognize the incredible, unselfish work of the first responders who risked their own lives to help those in need.
*Non-curriculum activities include but are not limited to extra-curricular activities
such as sports, performing arts, volunteerism, student government, and clubs
that focus on topics such as academics, vocational and professional, service,
arts and crafts, mechanical shops, hobbies, publications/media, languages,
religion, and so on. They also include events like excursions and social
outreach programs, to name a few. These activities provide a channel for
reinforcing the lessons learned in the classroom, offering students the
opportunity to apply academic skills in a real-world context, and thus help
contribute to a well-rounded education.
Our storytelling tool facilitates legacy preservation, enables students to communicate better and helps small businesses succeed. Storytelling brings communities together by sharing people’s common histories, rather than their differences. Schools, students, students’ families and friends participate in Americans All at no cost and receive a free, three-month trial to our Social Legacy Network.
What makes us unique is that we include verified historical information—presented in multiple, nonpolitical perspectives—to provide context for these stories and the experiences, observations and accomplishments reflected in them.
Local businesses, service providers, and cottage industries participate in our program as Business Legacy Partners, for a nominal fee, 77 percent of which is donated to a school of their choice. They can leverage stories about their business or practice to build closer relationships with current and future customers and clients. They can also use our program to share discounts on their goods and services with Americans All Social Legacy Network members.
Schools frequently ask businesses for financial support but rarely provide them with anything of value in return. Our grassroots approach enables schools to receive ongoing revenue from the fees paid by Business Legacy Partners. Americans All members can also continue their Social Legacy Network subscription for a small monthly cost ($4) after the free trial to continue to receive discounts from program partners. We gift 77 percent of our gross revenues to schools that support our program.
Benefits of Storytelling and Americans All to Schools
Schools participate in Americans All for free because they reinforce our goals of creating and sharing legacy stories and supporting students' participation in non-curriculum school activities. In addition, schools:
- Receive free stories on their school that is published on our Heritage Honor Roll, in multiple languages, if desired.
- Enable student teams and clubs to create Legacy Partner landing pages to host the stories of their members, thus creating virtual yearbooks.
- Host if they choose to, on their free Americans All Legacy Partner landing page(s), stories from our Heritage Honor Roll created by their students, staff, friends and alumni.
- Allow students to receive credit for volunteer activities that are sponsored by the school.
- Provide local businesses, cottage industries and professional service providers with their 6-digit membership code to gain ongoing, unrestricted revenue.
Heritage Honor Roll Stories
Americans All members can create, edit, share and preserve a multimedia legacy story forever on our Web-based Heritage Honor Roll and the landing pages of our Legacy Partners. Legacy stories can:
- Contain up to 2,000 words, of which 1,000 can be password protected;
- Be published in multiple languages and be updated at no cost;
- Be enhanced with photographs, home movies and audio recordings;
- Include links to other Heritage Honor Roll legacy stories, social media sites and other Web pages; and
- Be shortened to print on an 8½” x 11” template to share with family and friends.
Click here to view our program overview.
Click here for tips on “How to create a legacy story” and tips on “Storytelling for younger children.”
Click here to see information for PTA-PTO's.
Click here to learn how to become a School Legacy Partner.
Any questions? Please contact Americans All.