{Story Courtesy: Arts Midwest}
Lebanon, Indiana is dialing up its arts and culture scene by encouraging its residents to share their stories. In central Indiana, a refurbished phone booth is unifying a city.
“Lebanon is primarily a blue-collar town,” says Joe LePage, Lebanon, Indiana’s Communication and Community Development Director. In this city of 17,000, residents like LePage wanted to find more opportunities for fun, alongside function.
He noticed nearby towns with dedicated arts districts offering entertainment, belonging, and community pride. LePage imagined something similar in Lebanon, he says, “to create something fun in our community and provide a space where—no matter your age or persuasion—there would be a place.”
After meeting with the Indiana Arts Commission (IAC), LePage saw that a full arts district was still a few years away. But the IAC asked Lebanon to host Creative Convergence, a two-day workshop with the Indiana Communities Institute at Ball State, designed to integrate arts and culture into more Indiana cities.
As one of the 10 cities selected to participate in the workshop, LePage and teammates Corey Kutz, Missy Krulik, and Anita Gordon brainstormed ideas to inspire a more creative, unified community.
“Missy mentioned seeing an .mp3 recorder in an old rotary phone at a wedding, for folks to share stories for the couple,” LePage recalls. “That was the jumping-off point. How could this be presented within our community?”
Backed by a grant from the IAC, they tracked down an old-fashioned phone booth and fitted it with a recorder. They dubbed it the Lebanon Story Booth and unveiled it at public events—farmers markets, a community holiday party, a LEGO event at the library—with different prompts: What brought you to Lebanon? What’s your favorite thing to do here?
“The whole goal is to have folks know they have more in common than they think,” says LePage.
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