Your service made history.
Preserve your story with Operation: Service Story!
Project Goal: Collect oral histories from veterans and service members across United Way of Northeastern Minnesota's service area to encourage healing and build community.
This project will support the efforts of the St. Louis County Historical Society (SLCHS)'s Veterans Memorial Hall, and materials will be made available to local, state, and/or national archives as well as local educators as veteran permission allows.
Project Plan: United Way of Northeastern Minnesota has assembled a team of local volunteers who will be trained to collect the histories of veterans/service members from the Iron Range, Koochiching County, and Lake of the Woods County.
Veterans/service members interviewed will be given the option to keep their history private, share with the SLCHS archive or other local, state, and/or national archives, and/or have parts of their story used for a potential book project.
Criteria: Veterans and service members from all branches and all eras of service are invited to participate. Individuals must have ties to the Iron Range, Koochiching County, and/or Lake of the Woods County. DD214 or military ID required.
Interested? Fill out a short form online, and someone from United Way of Northeastern Minnesota will be in touch when it's time to begin scheduling interviews! (To have a paper form mailed to you, please call 218-254-3329.)
Operation: Service Story is an oral history project organized through United Way of Northeastern Minnesota's United for Veterans program in partnership with Veterans Memorial Hall and St. Louis County Historical Society, with support from Minnesota Historical Society, Veterans Community Thrift Store, and Chisholm Community Foundation.