Alexandria Will Pay Residents $1,000 to Record the City’s Stories
ALEXANDRIA, VA — Alexandria residents who know a neighborhood storyteller, family historian or community elder may soon have an opportunity to preserve those memories—and receive $1,000 for doing the work.
Applications for the Office of Historic Alexandria’s 2026–27 StoryKit cohort open Monday, Sept. 7.
The program trains City residents in oral-history methods and provides resources for participants to complete their own community-history projects.
No previous professional experience is required.
According to the City’s official StoryKit announcement, current Alexandria residents with all levels of skill and experience are encouraged to apply.
Participants will begin with five weeks of training. Sessions meet from 7–9 p.m. Tuesdays, Nov. 10 through Dec. 15.
After completing the training, cohort members will develop and carry out their own oral-history projects. The complete program continues through June 30, 2027.
Each selected cohort member will receive a $1,000 stipend.
Oral history uses recorded interviews to preserve personal experiences in the voices of the people who lived them. Those accounts can add details, perspectives and emotion that rarely appear in government records, newspapers or conventional history books.
In a city that has experienced segregation, integration, urban renewal, immigration, waterfront redevelopment and rapid neighborhood change, that work can capture stories that might otherwise disappear.
Alexandria’s Oral History Center already maintains an archive containing transcripts from more than 150 interviews. Its larger mission is to document a broader and more nuanced record of the city’s past and present while giving residents a role in interpreting their own communities.
There is one important application detail.
The City says the online application portal will initially be available only to people who attended its Sept. 3 information session.
Residents who could not attend should contact the Alexandria Oral History Center at [email protected] for instructions rather than assuming they are no longer eligible.
The Center can also be reached at 703-946-2687.
The public announcement does not list an application deadline. Prospective participants should therefore contact the Center promptly after applications open.
Potential projects could involve a longtime neighborhood resident, a local business, a school community, a faith congregation, an immigrant family or another part of Alexandria’s living memory. Those are suggestions, not topics assigned by the City.
The essential qualification may simply be curiosity—and an understanding that today’s conversation can become tomorrow’s history.
More information is available through the Alexandria Oral History Center.
