The Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO is working on a project called "One Small Step" which pairs community members with different political or religious views to have a conversation and get to know each other as people.
In this WYSO Weekend excerpt, we spoke with center director Will Davis, and Ryann Beaschler, the assistant manager of the project, as they begin pairing participants and hosting conversations in July.
This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kenney: Today, we've got Will Davis, director of the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices, and we've another person working with the center now whose voice will be familiar to some YSO news listeners. Will?
Davis: Hi Jerry, I'm happy to be here and I'm here with Ryann Beaschler too, who is the assistant manager of this project we're working on.
Beaschler: Hi Jerry, thanks for having me.
Kenney: Sure, Ryann. You were a news intern for a couple of years, and you've been tasked to help the center with this new project that we're going to talk about. Could you tell us a little bit about it?
Beaschler: Yeah, absolutely. So excited to make the transition from the newsroom to the Community Voices side of WYSO. So we're working on a project called One Small Step. We're one of four stations selected nationwide in 2025 to host this project from StoryCorps. So it's a community building project at its core, we pair to people that are strangers fellow community members of the southwest Ohio community for a conversation and these people have different political or religious or different ideologies in general for a conversation about themselves — not to debate or change each other's minds, but to get to know each other as people and their hopes for the future.
Kenney: That's a pretty big project. Will, you are familiar with this project. You have a history with it at another radio station, correct?
Davis: I am. I was living and working in Tennessee with another public radio station and teaching at the University of Tennessee, and we partnered with StoryCorps there and did this One Small Step project. And it is really, really impactful.
"So the goal for this project is to remind people of the humanity in all of us, especially those who we disagree with."
I've been lucky enough to be involved in lots of creative projects in my career, but nothing like this. I mean, it's seeing two people, complete strangers, come together, have a 50-minute conversation, and connect, and become friends, oftentimes they became friends really, it just really gives a hope for the future.
And things are so divided now.. But to see and hear people talk about those things and not what they believe but why they believe it, because we believe what we believe for a reason. There are stories behind what we believe, and we don't get a chance to share those, we just say one thing and then that's it.
So, just to be present and to listen to people talk about why they believe what they believe and connect, it really changed my life.
Kenney: And Ryann, you're going to be facilitating the conversations between these individuals?
Beaschler: Absolutely. We receive some training from StoryCorps on facilitating these conversations. Just making sure that they talk more about their experiences, don't get to the debate side or focus on their difference, but really the goal of this project is to focus on what they have in common, which is really the humanity in all of us, and bringing that to light. So the goal for this project is to remind people of the humanity in all of us, especially those who we disagree with. I think we're so inclined to see our difference and to argue about difference and get to that level of tension and division. You see it on social media, you see it between people, and there's not a lot of opportunities to just talk about each other and talk about our experiences and where this comes from.
Kenney: That's great. Have any conversations been had yet?
Beaschler: We haven't had any, we're planning to start here at the beginning of July and start pairing people together.
Kenney: Tell us a little bit about how people can become involved.
Beaschler: All you have to do is go to wyso.org/onesmall tep. There's a questionnaire there. It's a brief questionnaire just about your ideologies, political, religious, a few other questions there. Questions about your experiences that have fueled those ideologies.
Kenney: Will, while we've got you here, what else is happening with the Eichelberger Center?
Davis: We're in the middle of a great season of WYSO Youth Radio, we're in the middle of the new season of Veterans Voices, Blue Skies and Tailwinds, and I'm learning about Dayton's rich aviation history. There's a new series that we're going to premiere next month called We Outside, which is about people of color in parks and outdoor spaces by one of our Community Voices producers. So we have a lot going on. And then Ryan and I, and also Chris Welter, we're just going to be really super busy in July. Putting this One Small Step project together but this is really I think it's important work and it's just fun too. It's just a really fun project.
Kenney: I encourage everyone to check out the community voices tab on our website to see what the center is doing. They're raising all kinds of voices up to be heard here in the Miami Valley. We really appreciate the work you're doing. Will and Ryann, thank you both for joining us.
