From her modest home in the Poudre Valley Trailer Park on N. College Avenue, Catherine Leverette, 74, slowly shares a bit of her history with grandmother-like charm. The light is dim in her cozy living room, but bright enough to show her smile crease upward as she talks about growing up in Kansas, her loving children and past jobs.

Angie Dueber, a senior marketing and management student from Colorado State University, perches on the edge of a couch next to her, with a pad of paper and pen in hand. Patiently and politely she asks one question after another, starting with more basic ones and then moving onto ones of a more abstract nature. She’s careful not to rush and lets casual conversation intermingle between each question. It’s the first time the two have met.

Leverette’s memory is splotchy at times, a lingering symptom from a past stroke, but one by one, stories and pieces of insight begin flowing from her lips. Through the course of the 45-minute conversation, Leverette tells about family camping trips up in the mountains, making jack-in-the-box and Pocahontas Halloween costumes for her grandchildren and the time she saw Debbie Reynolds and Lucille Ball.

“I went to a program they had at Boettcher Hall in Denver on my birthday,” Leverette said. “I went the wrong way when parking the car. A big limo pulled up and there were people standing around like the do now with young movie stars. Debbie Reynolds and Lucille Ball got out of the car and I waved and said hi.”

A signed photograph of Debbie Reynolds still hangs on her wall alongside family photos and pictures of her beloved grandchildren.

The visit is for a school project, for a management class at CSU called Designing Organizations for Innovation and Change, which is taught by Jim McCambridge, associate professor. The assignment was for groups to work with a nonprofit organization to help develop a specific program. Dueber’s group was matched with Volunteers of America to create the framework for the Legacy Project, an initiative to capture the memories and stories of local seniors. Other groups were matched with organizations that include the American Cancer Society, Respite Care and Neighbor to Neighbor. McCambridge, who is an avid volunteer himself, implemented the project this semester for the first time as a service learning project.

“Among other things I hope the students walk away with the appreciation of business principles that apply in both profit and nonprofit context,” he said. “Secondly, I hope they walk away with the awareness of how organizations in the nonprofit sector function.”

Diane Stobnicke, division director for Northern Colorado Services of the Volunteers of America Colorado Branch, had envisioned the Legacy Project after listening to StoryCorps on National Public Radio.

“It made me think we could do that for our seniors,” she said. “We could get a little bit of their stories and preserve them for their families or the community. ... There’s a wealth of people in our community that we don’t even know about.”

Stobnicke works with seniors, many who are homebound and may or may not have families. She said that a lot of times, they become depressed and feel forgotten or that their value in the world has passed. But, with limited staff and resources, her Legacy Project was placed on the back-burner, until she was contacted by McCambridge. She was thrilled with the idea of having students design the project for future implementation. The students were in charge of developing the project, creating the questions and testing the interview process.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Dueber said. “There are so many great stories you can hear and things you an learn. It’s great to tap into that knowledge of someone who has lived much longer than you.”

Dueber said that stories from older generations do sometimes get lost and that there is something to be said for preserving as many of them as possible.

“I think a lot of people don’t think to ask someone to tell their stories, but at the same time I don’t think there is a lack of interest. Everyone is so busy and consumed with their lives, but once you hear these stories, it’s amazing how applicable it is to your lives,” Dueber said.

Kathy Pavlicek, another student in Dueber’s group, said she was personally satisfied with what her group accomplished. Though it was challenging at times to coordinate everyone’s schedules, she thought it was a great learning experience.

“It was a class project, but it was more than that,” she said.

The students will be presenting their final report in class this week. McCambridge is planning to do a debriefing with the project coordinators of the nonprofits and hopes to have classes do similar projects in subsequent semesters. Once the class projects are complete, they will be turned over to the nonprofit groups. Stobnicke hopes to find a volunteer to spearhead the project from here on out and can then recruit other volunteers to record the stories of senior residents.

“If we find someone who is really committed, anything can happen,” she said. “It stems out of passion.”

She said that the stories will be published in their newsletters, but that there are numerous possibilities such as having them published in newspapers or maybe even a book. She added that even though the stories are important, the real reward is reconnecting with people who have become isolated.

“You never know what can happen,” Stobnicke said. “There are lots of different avenues it can take. ... People could even form friendships out of this.”

Though it can be a little nerve-racking to ask a stranger personal questions, Dueber found that it is easier to get the whole picture of that person’s life in one sitting because she didn’t have any previous knowledge. She also discovered that she was more attentive than she would have been if it were someone she already knew.

When Dueber asked Leverette what the most important thing in life is, she said simply, being well. Leverette also told her that if she could do anything in the world, she would travel to places like Spain and Paris—places she read about but never got to see.

At the end of the interview, Dueber looked up at Leverette and asked what advice she could give.

“What advice would I give you?” Leverette repeated. “I would tell you to stay in school and finish. Live your life and enjoy it. ... Save your money and pay yourself first.”