Press Release
May 1, 2026
2026 Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture Grant Winners
The American Indian Library Association (AILA) and Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) are pleased to award an $800 grant to each of the following organizations to host Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture programming that reflects family literacy, intergenerational service, cultural literacy, and strong representation of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) and American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) identities and communities.
Farrington High School (Hawaiʻi) will continue its Samoan Language program, uplifting AANHPI students through their language, culture, identity, and community. The project goals are to build pride in gagana Samoa (Samoan language), strengthen faasinomaga (identity), connect students to the land and their ancestors, and increase family literacy by bringing students and parents into shared cultural spaces.
Mechoopda Indian Tribe of Chico Rancheria (California) will offer a four-week intergenerational panel and storytelling series designed to strengthen family literacy, preserve cultural knowledge, and elevate Native voice and agency within their service area. The goal of this four week series is to increase intergenerational cultural knowledge transfer among at least 75 participating families, producing four professionally recorded and archived storytelling sessions accessible to all tribal members, engaging at least 20 youth in active learning and cultural documentation roles, and developing literacy-based companion materials that families can use at home to extend learning.
Sagan Flores (Guåhan) will offer a Chamorro chanting workshop for families, “Voices of the Ancestors”. The goal is to reconnect Chamorro children and their families, both locally in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and in diaspora communities, with their language, culture, and ancestral knowledge through traditional chanting, oral storytelling, and culturally rooted literature. Sagan Flores, a CNMI-based nonprofit dedicated to cultural preservation and holistic wellness, will lead an interactive, intergenerational experience that strengthens literacy, identity and resilience.
Warren County Memorial Library (North Carolina) will offer an intergenerational family literacy initiative designed to center AANHPI and American Indian voices, stories, and cultural knowledge. They will promote intergenerational literacy through shared storytelling and cultural experiences to increase understanding and visibility of AANHPI and American Indian cultures within a rural community with limited access to multicultural programming; and create a welcoming space that honors lived experience, cultural agency, and non-colonial ways of knowing. The project will consist of a series of monthly Talk Story events, each intentionally designed to bring together children, parents, elders, and caregivers. Programs will include interactive read-alouds, oral storytelling, cultural demonstrations, and hands-on activities rooted in family literacy. Programs will feature storytellers and educators alongside representatives from the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe, the American Indian tribe historically and currently connected to Warren County.
To explore past projects, visit the Talk Story Past Grant Winners page.
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Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture is a literacy program that reaches out to AAANHPI and AIAN children, their families, and their intergenerational community members. The program celebrates and explores culturally informed stories through books, oral traditions, art, and immersive activities to provide an enriching experience of reading, language, and cultural literacy.
Talk Story is a joint project between the American Indian Library Association and the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association as part of ALA 2009–2010 President Camila Alire’s Family Literacy Focus Initiative.
Committee Chairs are Stacy Wells (AILA), Cassandra Osterloh (AILA), Alex Soto (AILA), Jen Woo (APALA), and Jessea Young (APALA). For more information, please visit the Talk Story website.