ATTN.: ARTISTS, FREELANCE JOURNALISTS, SERVERS, AND CHELSEA RESIDENTS

Join us for upcoming virtual community conversations with the Local Voices Network

Do you work in the service industry? As a waiter, cook, front desk clerk, bartender, or in some other capacity?

Are you an artist or performer of some kind?

And/or do you work as a freelance media maker?

Finally, do you live in Chelsea?

If you check one or many of those boxes, have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and want to share your personal story, we hope that you will join us for a conversation. We want to speak with people from other community and interest groups as well, but for now we’re focusing on artists, service industry professionals, freelance reporters, and Chelsea residents.

You can learn more about and sign up for upcoming online conversations (using Zoom) through the links at the bottom of this post, but first we want to tell you a little bit more about our partner in this listening initiative, the Local Voices Network.

LVN is fueled by ordinary people sharing their voices in small-group discussions led by experienced conversation hosts. While in normal circumstances LVN hosts these conversations in gathering spots such as libraries, community centers, and kitchens, so that participants have a unique opportunity to listen, learn, speak, and be heard, the organization has moved online since the COVID-19 outbreak and has so far had success convening people virtually in Boston and across the country.

You can learn more about LVN with these articles from the Center for Cooperative Media and the Urban Libraries Council, and at the sign-up links below. Conversations are an hour and 15 minutes long, and provide a great opportunity for you to share your experience with others and inform future reporting on these issues (whether or not you choose to be quoted directly).