Centennial Stories

By Matt Waurio

Over the past few decades, while film cameras, and then smartphones and social media became commonplace, PATC has played a smaller role in collecting and preserving the stories of its members. Today, with more media collected than ever before, content is distributed across personal devices, social media accounts, and family photo albums. So, as we digitize PATC’s historic documents at HQ, we want to also make sure that we create space for members to continue to submit their PATC-related media with the option to provide their context on projects and people. These stories bring us together and humanize our process of creating outdoor access for all. 

Our staff member Jess LaPolla and volunteer Bob Makowski have created a new online submission tool where members and friends of PATC can submit photographs, videos, audio recordings, written documents, and other historical materials for long-term preservation. We hope that you will use it to tell your PATC story. Whether as audio of some moment or memory, a few scanned photos from your family album, or a short-form video interview of a PATC member, we encourage you to submit your media, sharing why it is important to you, so that it remains part of PATC's accessible history. 

You can submit your stories on our newly launched Centennial webpage.

As we look toward our second century, preserving our history isn't simply about nostalgia. It's about strengthening the community that has always made PATC successful. It's about learning from the past and knowing what’s been done so we can drive for a better future. Every story saved reminds us that stewardship is ultimately about people working together to care for trails, protect public lands, and create opportunities for others to experience the outdoors. 

A century from now today's volunteers will be the history someone else is discovering. 

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