Sharing and Preserving the Ancient Art of Oral Storytelling

On July 26, 2026, the Broomfield Spellbinders chapter of Spellbinders.org celebrated 25 years of oral storytelling in local schools (preschool grades 1-6), senior living, and local community events. The event, held in the afternoon at Anthem Ranch Community Lodge, featured storytelling and refreshments.

More than 60 audience members attended, ranging from children to seniors. We were pleasantly surprised by the turnout. The audience enjoyed a variety of stories, including nature stories with a pretend fire, musical stories, and fairy tales. The attendees responded enthusiastically, offering rave reviews and standing ovations.  

Broomfield Spellbinders is a chapter of Spellbinders.org, a nonprofit that wishes to preserve the ancient art of oral storytelling. The Colorado-born organization was founded in 1988 and is now nationwide.

Our mission is to create connections between generations through the art of storytelling.

Purpose of grant

We wanted to celebrate the dedication of our chapter for 25 years and to spread the word of our organization to the Broomfield community. We hoped to have audience members with school connections to tell those schools that we would like to send tellers to more schools in the Broomfield area. We hoped to recruit more storytellers to join in the fun.  We did receive some interest in becoming a teller. We invited all the chapters here in Colorado as well as our National Spellbinders Board, which sent a board member. All tellers invited the teachers (and their families) from schools where they told last year

Several tellers from other Spellbinder chapters attended and enjoyed seeing our tellers perform. They gathered information to supplement their storytelling portfolios.

Funding

The Alex Wilson Legacy Fund donation helped us in many ways. We needed funds to find a location that had several rooms (with air conditioning), we could use. We used the funds to pay the rental fees and to print up signage and bookmarks.

We purchased flowers as parting gifts to promote the events’ theme of “growing imaginations.” We also used the funds to purchase refreshments for all who attended.

Comments

“Our family had a great time at the Spellbinders 25th Anniversary Event. Our three granddaughters loved all the stories — even the snake one because it was funny, not scary.  The girls’ eyes were glued to the flute player, and her story was very touching. We hope there will be more storytelling events for families to attend in the future.”

“As a storyteller from a neighboring chapter, I was impressed by the organization done for such a big event. I gathered some new stories to add to my list and some storytelling skills by watching and listening to the master storytellers from Broomfield Spellbinders.”

“I attended the Spellbinders anniversary celebration and had such a great experience.  The venue was very nice and the storytelling was wonderful!  I am so glad I attended.”

“On Sunday, July 26, 2026, I attended the Broomfield Storytelling Anniversary event at the Anthem Ranch Community Center. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, entertaining and fun! . . . I enjoyed the variety of stories and themes on the agenda and being given options on which sessions to attend. The audiences of adults and children alike smiled, applauded and were mesmerized by the tales they heard.. . . This was an educational and fun time for all.”