It's getting hot outside. School is out and July 4 is just around the corner. Summer is here! What does the summer season mean to you? Americans are full of great summer stories. Whether you're meeting a bear on a road trip to Yellowstone or holding on for dear life during a wild whitewater rafting experience, we all have a summer story to tell. These stories are about much more than the fun we have. The real story is how we carry memories of special relationships with our families and friends, and relish our connections to the beauty and thrills of the natural world around us. Celebrate the summer! Get out there and have a great time!

Explore the many ways that people contribute their skills, their passions, and their time to activities that benefit their hometowns. No matter where we live, we benefit from working together to improve the quality of life in the world around us. Listen in as today's storytellers talk about their experiences in serving their communities.

"Too often, the women were unsung, and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achivements, leadership, courage, strength, and love of the women who built American was as vital as that oft eh men whose names we know so well." -- President Jimmy Carter, 1980 proclamation announcing Women's History Week.

Since our country's founding, women have been at the forefront of community service and community engagement. American women contribute to the workforce: they are teachers, artists, engineers, scientists, ranchers, politician, and everything in between. Listen in as women talk about how their work contributes to their communities and has an impact on their lives.

In addition to our families, we also share ties that bond us with friends, neighbors, and companions in shared interests like religious, cultural and civic groups. These ties are on prime display in small towns and neighborhoods all over the country. We rely on each other, no matter where we live. We carry a package mistakenly dropped at our door over to our neighbor. We gather together to help families and friends in times of need. These strong bonds are built around a deep love of the people and places around us. It's not romantic love, but community is a special kind of love. Listen in as people across the country talk about the bonds of community and how they make their hometowns a special place.

"How do people have fun in your town?" was one of the most interesting questions Stories from Main Street asked of rural Americans over the years. Never let anyone say that life in small towns or rural communities is boring. While a community may look quiet from the outside, there's a ton of life bubbling within -- from town events to enjoying the natural landscape to swimming with an alligator. (Wait, what? Just listen!) Unsurprisingly, football comes up a lot when people answer this question. Communities will always come together to show their support and appreciation for their hometown teams. Having fun in a small town is built around close relationships with people or the land. How do people have fun in your community?

Welcome back to the Smithsonian's Stories from Main Street! It's the holidays, and for many of us, that means food. Our foodways connect us in intimate ways to our families, to history, and tradition. In this episode, we're going to hear from people around the country who see food as a way to remember the people they've lost, and to continue valuable traditions from their ancestors. You might even gest some ideas for some new recipes!

Sit back and cozy up for some wholesome goodness. Take a trip down memory lane that will have you ready to gather round with some good food with your friends and family this holiday season.

Your host and producer for Smithsonian's Stories from Main Street is Katie Marquette. To explore more stories from rural America, visit us at https://www.museumonmainstreet.org/stories. Want to join the fun and tell us about your experiences in small towns? Visitor our friends at The Peale Museum and use the Be Here Stories web app at https://beherestories.thepeale.org.

Welcome back to Smithsonian's Stories from Main Street! We're relaunching this series during an introspective time of year, with Halloween just around the corner. Come join us around the campfire for some spooky, eerie, enchanting stories from rural America. Our storyteller today is Joe Perry, a member of the Choctaw Nation in Poteau, Oklahoma. Joe was born in 1956 and remembers a childhood running in the woods and fields of his rural home. Joe takes us into a world of adventure and mystery where we encounter a number of unexplained incidents that will leave you wondering what really happened. Storytellers pull from their own experiences and traditions, and local folklore and legends to weave drama and thrilling moments into their stories. Joe Perry is a master of the art of the story. You'll be on the edge of your seat!

Your host and producer for Smithsonian's Stories from Main Street is Katie Marquette. The podcast is a production of the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program, in association with The Peale Museum. To explore stories from rural America, visit us at https://www.museumonmainstreet.org/stories. Want to join the fun and tell us about your experiences in small towns? Visit our friends at the Peale and use the Be Here Stories web app at https://beherestories.thepeale.org/.

Download a transcript of this episode at: https://museumonmainstreet.org/sites/default/files/shapeshiftersepisodetranscript_stories_from_main_street.pdf

Young people throughout the country bring new perspectives and attitudes to our history and our culture. But often, they don't feel welcome to the conversations that adults have about community and culture. Since 2012, the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street has been working with small towns that want to highlight youth perspectives. Young people explore topics related to history, culture, and change in their communities and then create multimedia projects that tell their hometown's story. The result is that youth get an important opporunity to show that they are interested in the direction of their communities and have constructive perspectives on how rural Americans can work together for a better future. Listen in as we talk with leaders of local youth projects and hear from students themselves as they talk about life in a rural community.

Here's a sneak peek at our next special episode! Give a listen to the voices and the work of the next generation of rural Americans learning about their communities. Young people living in rural America are just like other American youth: interested in change, thinking about their futures, and ... sometimes feeling like adults aren't interested in what youth have to say. Our episode celebrating youth voices in rural America will be released on March 27. 

You've got to have friends! Personal and professional connections are critical to the development of healthy communities, whether they are rural or urban. In this final episode of our Spark! series, we're examing how two communities innovated around culture and heritage to overcome stagnation and division. In Helper, Utah, the city came together to design their own revitalized main street and plan a future after the coal industry left. In Franklin, North Carolina, the town had to face the past to reconcile with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians so the two communities could work together to preserve the past and build a mutually beneficial future.