MONTAGUE CENTER — An effort to preserve the stories of Montague Center residents through audio storytelling is beginning community outreach efforts with a kick-off event at the Montague Common Hall this week.

Starting at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14, doors will open for people to have refreshments and listen to music before panelists Ann Fisk, Mark Fisk and Mark Girard share Montague Center stories. Artist Julie Kumble will moderate the panel.

Attendees can learn more about the project, called the Montague Center Oral History Project, and get details on the audio training sessions for the podcast portion of the project that will be held in December and January. Photographer John Rae will also be part of the project, taking portraits of the interviewees that will accompany the podcast.

Montague Center Library Branch Manager Kate Martineau said residents have already expressed interest in the project and the library bought the recording equipment needed to document the stories in a podcast narrative.

The inspiration for the Montague Center Oral History Project came from a similar project in Colrain called “A People’s History of Colrain.” Jesse Olsen Bay, director of Weathervane Community Arts, helped create the project in Colrain by producing the podcast and expressed interest to Martineau in doing a similar project in Montague Center, where he lives.

“After I finished up with some of those episodes, I thought, ‘Oh, we’ve got to do something like this over here in Montague,’” Bay said. “I talked to [Martineau] and she was excited, and she said there are some other Montague residents, including Julie Kumble, who have actually been talking about a sort of similar project.”

Bay will handle editing the audio from the recordings into a narrative podcast that will offer “posterity and enjoyment” for listeners.

From her perspective at the library, Martineau said she has become a sort of “repository” for stories from people in Montague Center. She said the project will prioritize voices of Montague Center residents who are 80 years old or older, but all residents with a connection to the village are welcome to participate.

“[We] thought that it would be nice to be able to collect these stories, particularly from our elders who won’t be with us forever, to have their voices in a collection that anybody can access,” she said.

As the project progresses, Martineau said she hopes it can eventually expand outside of Montague Center and into the other villages. The project is currently funded by the Montague Public Libraries, but the hope is to apply for grant funding that could be used to further the project.

In a larger sense, Martineau feels this is a valuable opportunity for community building during an important juncture of history.

“It feels really important right now for people to remember that we’re all people, we all have stories and we’re trying to emphasize that these are their oral histories,” Martineau said. “We might remember things differently and that’s OK. Their stories are their own, our own personal truths, but we just need to become better listeners and be able to talk to people.”

Bay feels similarly. He added that this is an opportunity to understand the history and people in a first-hand way that other forms of historical storytelling can’t achieve.

“Just hearing these firsthand stories, you get a sense of a place that’s really unique, deep and profound,” Bay said. “This is an opportunity to really learn about this place that I live and that I love on a level that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to learn about it.”

Donations to help fund the oral history project can be made to the Friends of the Montague Public Libraries at tinyurl.com/yuca5a2r.

Erin-Leigh Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.