Across the decades, from 1935 to 2013, our stories remain the same.
Hardship, heartbreak, and hope unite us.
Hardship, heartbreak, and hope unite us.
The first sentence sung in the Spare A Dime song cycle is "life turns on a dime." Throughout the piece, we are reminded that, truly, anything can happen to anyone at any moment. How we face our losses, how we struggle to overcome them, ultimately defines us as individuals, as communities, and as a nation. America is by definition a hopeful country, a country of hopefuls. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) wrote in his 1940 Dayton, Ohio Address “We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.”
Spare A Dime originated in stories collected from all over the city, from folks who lived through the Great Depression, from families dealing with economic hardships and devastating heartbreak today, and from the copious interviews collected by the WPA Federal Writers Project. These shared stories unite us across time and remind us that our ability to empathize with each other -- to really see and listen to each other -- is essential. Each song in the Spare A Dime cycle is "introduced" by a brief audio recording taken from these interviews and based in these common experiences. Please continue to share your stories with us; we look forward to hearing from you.
Spare A Dime originated in stories collected from all over the city, from folks who lived through the Great Depression, from families dealing with economic hardships and devastating heartbreak today, and from the copious interviews collected by the WPA Federal Writers Project. These shared stories unite us across time and remind us that our ability to empathize with each other -- to really see and listen to each other -- is essential. Each song in the Spare A Dime cycle is "introduced" by a brief audio recording taken from these interviews and based in these common experiences. Please continue to share your stories with us; we look forward to hearing from you.
We send our deepest condolences to the family of Patrick Coyle, who was killed by a hit and run driver early New Year's Day just blocks from his home. Compassionate, talented, and hardworking, Patrick was the brother of Spare A Dime Construction Manager Mike Coyle and was a dedicated COSACOSA volunteer. We are grateful to have known him; he made the world a better place to be.