A Picture’s Worth: Middie Pride shines with Middletown residents telling their stories

Credit: Nick Graham

Credit: Nick Graham

The exhibit offered an opportunity to for people to participate in a self-guided gallery experience celebrating Middletown’s resilience and history in visual storytelling showing how narratives shift when community members are placed at the center of their own stories, according to Shores, Middletown Connect project manager.

“With Middletown Connect it is all about bridging the gap between citizens and the people who are making decision for them,” Shores said. “Especially around things that impact our health. We look at the notion that 80 percent of our health is non medical. That means lived experiences, culture, environment, community, connectedness. All those things matter.”

Through census data, the agency learned that life expectancy greatly differs depending on a neighborhood or even a street in the city.

“One of the startling numbers in Middletown is you may live 12 ½ years less than people just down the street according to the data. Not in another city, but in another neighborhood.” she said.

So the agency and others set out to talk to people in the community and get those people to talk with each other to bring about change and direction to city leaders.

“There is this assumption there is no pride. Our focus is Middie Pride. There is pride here in these communities that people have neglected for a while in terms of investment and communication.” Shores said.

The exhibit is a celebration of the empowerment of community members both current and past to tell “their own stories, whatever that looks like,” Shores said.

It is not a narrative from the media, or city leaders, it is a combination of words and photos directly from people who have lived it.

Credit: Nick Graham

Credit: Nick Graham

City residents walked through the exhibit looking at and remembering the history as will as the current life in the neighborhood surrounding Rosa Park Elementary.

Shores said the next exhibit is planned for the neighborhood centered around Amanda Elementary School School on Oxford State Road.

“Essentially, we want the whole city of Middletown to be connected,” she said. “We what to continue to empower involvement and engagement. These people have been involved in changing their communities. This is us celebrating the stories we were told.”

The ongoing project is made possible by support of the Middletown Community Foundation and Interact for Health.