LAUNCHED!!
OURstory TREASURE HUNT:
Uncovering Saratoga Springs’ History of Us All

Thank you to all who joined us this past Saturday in Congress Park — physically and in spirit — to launch MLK Saratoga’s new adventure project, OURstory Treasure Hunt. The founding committee members (Carol Daggs, Lezlie Dana, Diana Domingo, Jean Fei, and Jen Natyzak) wish to shout-out our sincere thanks to our intrepid Beta Testers, our on-going gratitude to the ceremony’s co-sponsor — Jen Ogrodowski and Saratoga Springs Public Library — and our deep (so deep!) appreciation to Amy Godine, Kay Olan, Frederick Allen Lodge, Margo Olson, and Gio Smith for their input, guidance, editing, and wordsmithing!
Following are the profound words offered by OTH’s concept originator, Jean Fei:

Welcome to the Saratoga Springs History Treasure Hunt, OURstory!  I am thrilled to be here today to launch this adventure on behalf of MLK Saratoga and the many people who have worked to make this Treasure Hunt grow from a dream and a question mark into a full family experience that finds our most precious treasure:  Ourselves.

Saratoga Springs — Health, History and Horses — is still growing and thriving in the face of a global epidemic and we are ready to welcome the world to our doors.  With this Treasure Hunt, we open the doors to our history to find that the world has always been here.  With this treasure hunt, we discover the many people whose hands worked this land, whose labor built these streets and fine mansions, who nurtured foals into steeds, and whose stories are waiting, yet to be told.

American poet, T S Eliot said,  “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” 

Following the threads of stories told by our elders, our aunties and uncles, grandparents and neighbors, we can begin to weave a story that includes every one of us.  

As we work to create the very Beloved Community envisioned by Martin Luther King, we enrich our common knowledge and strengthen our bonds.  All of the struggles of this day — from our search for clean air and clean water to our global war against disease and our nation-state deeply divided — serve to teach us that each of us is dependent on each other for our survival and thriving.  

On Earth Day, it seems particularly right to launch “OURstory.”  The ashes of all our ancestors are mingled in this soil.  We must find ways to love and honor each other before the first blow — primary prevention of the stereotypes and bias that undermine our dream of America.  A dream we are making a reality today. 

Mark Twain said: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 

I hope you will join us on OURstory Treasure Hunt, and I hope that you, too, will add your story to the song that is Saratoga.

Thank you.

OURstory TREASURE HUNT. Uncover and explore Saratoga Springs’ history of our People of Color … we cannot truly know ourselves and how we have arrived where we are today until we re-weave the very fabric of OUR shared story — a much more color-full, vibrant and extraordinary tapestry of Humanity than our history books, classrooms, and memories have represented over the centuries. Let’s grow Saratoga Springs’ community into a stronger, healthier tomorrow — for all of us, together.