Operation Shoestring announces the release of its oral history project Raising Children in Central Jackson

June 14, 2024

This collection explores means to both be raised and raise children in the neighborhoods served by Operation Shoestring and consists of 35 stories archived at the Margaret Walker Center.

Operation Shoestring announces that its oral history Project, Raising Children in Central Jackson, is now publicly accessible through the Margaret Walker Center’s website and through a podcast series. Interviews were conducted by volunteer community members with their family members, friends, and neighbors through a project led by Operation Shoestring’s Research and Data Coordinator Dr. Alison Turner.

Dr. Turner says that she and her committee of Shoestring parents, volunteers, and Jackson residents identified five major themes within this collection. According to Dr. Turner these themes include “…how access to activities impacts how caregivers are able to provide for their children, changing practices and expectations for discipline, the changing role of faith, a deepening understanding of the long-term impacts of trauma, and an overwhelmingly consistent feeling that ‘the village’ of previous generations helped with raising children, but that now ‘the village is gone.’” For more information, you can go to https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/operation-shoestring. These oral histories are available on Spotify and Apple Podcast.

About Operation Shoestring

Operation Shoestring provides year-round academic, social, and emotional support to children in central Jackson children and youth while supporting and providing resources to their families. The aim is to empower the children and families we serve to create their own success, and that of their community, so we all rise together. Our core service community includes the Georgetown and Mid-City neighborhoods bordering the southern end of Bailey Avenue in central Jackson, Mississippi.

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