by Jovier Sanchez

My name is Jovier Sanchez and I’m from New York, New York.  So I moved to Salem with my husband in 2015. We opened a candle store there and it was on the first floor of theI want to say within a week and a half to two, and it was that dramatic, the drop-off for the business that we were initially getting was almost… like, it was night and day. We ...

by Kimberly

My name is Kimberly. I’m from Ocho Rios, Jamaica.  When I was 10, I started at an all girls boarding school there. I remember getting there and I was pretty overwhelmed. I I didn’t sleep that entire night because I was just thinking, like, What’s about to happen tomorrow morning when I had to face the entire school? The morning I woke up...

by Jason Marsden

Today’s Video Story was collected on the 50-state Story Tour. Check out the blog where you can follow us on our adventure. If you haven’t submitted a story yet to IFD, or ifI’m Jason Marsden. I am from Casper, Wyoming and I was a friend of Matt Shepard’s around 1997, and one of his friends was friends with one of my friends – was a colleague at...

by Gay Lynn Costa and Kyle MceLwain

NOTE: We collected the following two stories in Salt Lake City on the 50-state Story Tour. Gay Lynn Costa and her son, Kyle McElwain, hosted us while we were in SLC and were qu  I’M FROM CHOCTAW, OK. By Gay Lynn Costa When my son, Kyle, was fourteen years old, I asked him point-blank if he was gay. He admitted to me tearfully that he was. We hugg...

by Jason Cozart

I can never repay the deeds and downright good will the people in my life blessed me with. It all started back in 2002 on an unseasonably warm evening in Central Pennsylvania. My ...