Colorado Adult Education Professional Association
Newsletter

On Aug. 22, 2015 approximately 50 people gathered at the Dahms Talton Band Shell in the Fort Morgan Library Park to celebrate the unveiling of The Long Journey. The Long Journey is a book written by people who are recent immigrants to the Fort Morgan area. The book tells the stories of over thirty immigrants, what motivated them to leave their home country, and why they choose to live and work in Fort Morgan.

The project started over a year ago as a means to help students develop listening, writing, speaking, and leadership skills. The students were supported by employees of MCC/Workplace Education, who helped with editing and publishing. Cargill Meat Solutions, the City of Fort Morgan, and Morgan Community Education were also essential supporters of the project, The Long Journey. Many of the writers are employed by Cargill and stated their gratitude for employment at Cargill. Cargill also donated printing and binding of 400 copies of The Long Journey. The City of Fort Morgan donated the printing of 200 copies of The Long Journey. MCC is acting as the fiscal agent for the book to facilitate printing of the book.

At the celebration, all those who were involved in the development of the book were invited to come and celebrate the completion of the book. Mary Ginther was there to represent Cargill and personally hand each writer a copy of the book. Jeff Wells was the representative for the City of Fort Morgan and spoke about how each of us has a story in our history about how we ended up in Colorado. Katie Baron was there as a representative of MCC and pointed out how proud MCC is to participate in this endeavor. Many of the writers of the book attended the celebration, and several came forward to tell the public a little bit of their story and say how grateful they are to live in Fort Morgan.

The book The Long Journey is now available for purchase at a cost of $5.00. Books can be obtained at the Fort Morgan Library Museum Gift Shop. The writers of the book are also eager to come and present their book to clubs and organizations in order to practice their speaking skills. There are hopes that this will be the first of several books telling the story of how people came to Morgan County. If you are interested in obtaining a book or sharing your story, please contact [email protected] or at (970) 542-3238.