Wet, muddy and otherwise flood-damaged family photographs, videotapes, home movies and other sentimental media, victims of Colorado’s September floods, can be resurrected by the nonprofit .
The coalition is a group of business owners, archivists, genealogists and others eager to help people save photographs and other media that may look ruined.
“Our message is: Don’t throw things away just because you think they can’t be saved; bring it to us to see if we can help,” says Gwen Scherer, owner of one of the coalition partners.
“Remember, a lot of photos, film and film media were created using a wet process, like old-school photographs. If you have a stack of photographs that got wet and are stuck together, you can put them in a water bath, re-wet them and hang them up to dry. … Some will be totally unsalvageable. But some will look like nothing happened to them.”
On Sept. 13, Scherer and other coalition partners began posting fliers urging flood victims to bring their slides, videos, photos and other memorabilia to one of four stations between Littleton and Fort Collins.
At the Memory Recovery Center stations, staff and volunteers will help clean flood-damaged memorabilia as a free service, “as long as we can get volunteers to help, and as long as there is a need,” Scherer said.
Currently, the turnaround is about two weeks, thanks to a dwindling number of volunteers. (Note to the altruistic: Almost every flood-related nonprofit still needs volunteers).
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477, cmartin@denverpost.com or twitter.com/byclairemartin
Memory recovery centers
Four centersare helping people with flood-damaged home photographs, videotape, reels of film and other media. The centers also seek volunteers to help clean and restore the damaged photos.
Memories To Digital, 2525 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder; 303-554-7100
Leave A Legacy, 1827 E. Harmony Road, Fort Collins; 970-226-0102
Leave A Legacy, 487 S. Broadway, Denver; 303-623-0607
Memories to Digital, 8481 S. Yosemite, Suite B, Littleton; 303-799-1677
