Amplify Utah supports and facilitates dynamic journalistic storytelling to celebrate diverse points of view. By partnering with traditional media, we cultivate an environment that encourages stories be shared widely and made easily accessible for our communities to read, hear, watch and engage.
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A crowd of young adults nod their heads in time to a jazz trio as it weaves through its set on the stage at Fountain Records.
The dimly lit underground venue at 202 E. 500 South in Salt Lake City buzzes with energy. The place is small enough to create an intimacy that seems to unite the room. While timeless music and old brick walls elicit the past, the space allows young adults to connect, live and in person.
That has been Adam Terry’s goal since COVID-19 halted live performances and similar gatherings, particularly in small spaces. Terry, the store’s owner and founder of the creative label FOUNTAINavm, said bringing musicians and audiences back together has been crucial to redeveloping a community around music after the pandemic pulled many people into solitude and dependence on technology.
“I hope these third places get you off your phone and into the world more,” he said.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fountain Records, a gathering space for music lovers, hosts their all-ages “jazz night” with live music in downtown Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.
Researchers have found many communities and people are still recovering from the months of isolation brought on during the pandemic. Fountain Records and other spaces away from home and the workplace, for which American sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third places,” offer venues for socializing with others around shared interests as a way to build community. Cultivating such social connections, according to the Centers for Disease Control, can stave off chronic illnesses like heart disease, stroke, dementia and depression.
Fountain Records, said Ashby Worth, a Brigham Young University student who attended the jazz show, is “a great place to meet people with similar interests. … There’s definitely a crowd of regulars. [The event] just attracts a fun group of people, and it’s easy to make friends here.”
Music, Terry said, has always been a vessel through which culture and community have thrived.
“Anyone can make music, anyone can play music,” Terry said. “You don’t need anything. If you look at any culture in the world, the music is there in the middle, and anyone can contribute.”
Since the end of lockdown, as restrictions have been lifted, people have returned to the public sphere, creating their own communities of fandom.
One of the best-known examples is Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour,” which ended its nearly two-year global run in December. The tour famously built community among the singer’s fans — the Swifties — who traded friendship bracelets, copied the singer’s outfits and sang along to every song.
On a more intimate scale — without the thousands of dollars needed to buy a ticket to hear Swift — Salt Lake City residents can find another sense of fellowship through the local music scene in local record shops that double as low-cost venues, keeping music accessible.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fountain Records, a gathering space for music lovers, hosts their all-ages “jazz night” with live music in downtown Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.
"That was part of the original model, to create a third space,” Terry said of the Fountain Records space, which opened in November 2023.
Fountain Records hosts jazz nights most Thursdays, at 7 p.m. Admission is $5 at the door.
Randy’s Records, which opened in 1978 and remains one of the city’s oldest local record shops, strives to keep music accessible by hosting warehouse sales, said Eric Whisamore, an employee at the store who has been involved in the local music-selling industry for the last decade.
Whisamore said that every few months, Randy’s sells a variety of LPs, CDs, DVDs and cassette tapes for two dollars or less. These sales are an opportunity for listeners to meet new people with similar interests and discover new music, he said.
“It’s cheap enough that people buy stuff on a whim and explore new types of music,” Whisamore said. “Trying to keep things affordable is a really difficult part of maintaining a community.”
For Whisamore and the rest of the Randy’s Records staff, the community formed makes the active effort it takes to keep prices affordable worth it.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Randy’s Record Shop in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024 — two days after founder Randy Stinson died.
“Building a sense of community with people surrounding music is an easier way to build a community. People already have that common ground,” he said.
The store’s founder, Randy Stinson, died Dec. 14 at the age of 83. His son, Sam, told The Salt Lake Tribune that connecting people with music and introducing them to new artists and albums were his father’s favorite parts of owning the shop.
“Whatever culture that Randy brought to the city and the local community, it was just a place for music lovers,” he told The Tribune.
Sam Hurtado, founder of the Salt Lake City alternative band Hurtado, said he recognizes the value of the local music community in both his life and the lives of others.
“I was hit super-hard by the pandemic. I loved going to shows and talking to people and meeting new people and seeing new bands,” he said. “Live music is the best thing that you can do with your time, to be honest.”
Since the band’s formation — the band’s first gig was at Kilby Court on April 27, 2023, according to their Instagram account — , Hurtado has seen a community form.
“The band is very much me, because I write all the stuff, but [I appreciate] whoever can be involved in it,” he said, “whether that’s taking video or making art for it or taking pictures or playing or collaborating on stuff. I feel very blessed to have a community of people that stands behind it.”
Amelia Lepore, Hillcrest High senior and guitarist with the band Dr. Teeth, said she has already begun to see more people seeking out the local music scene in response to hyper-expensive arena tours.
(Dr. Teeth) Guitarist Amelia Lepore performs with her band, Dr. Teeth, at a backyard show in the Salt Lake City area.
“As quarantine stopped and people are getting out, more people are seeking local shows rather than huge arenas, due to the huge price increases in popular shows,” she said. “It’s so accessible and cheap to go [to local shows].”
Lepore said she also thinks people would benefit from experiencing new bands, even if they’re unfamiliar with the work.
“Sometimes we see posts and think, ‘I don’t know any of these bands … I’m going to be left out.’ [But] there’s always room for everybody and anybody,” she said.
The best way to get involved with and support the local music, Lepore said, is by attending events at some of the city’s smaller, unexpected venues.
“Just go to a show. Even if you’re by yourself. Just being able to be in a room and stand there and appreciate the music,” she said. “That’s what it is at its core, right?”
Grace Pruden wrote this story as a journalism student at the University of Utah. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text :This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Grace Pruden wrote this story as a journalism student at the University of Utah. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
Utah has a water problem.
According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, 2022 has been the driest year on record in Utah, with 79.12% of the state in extreme drought or worse this summer. It is affecting everything in the ecosystem, including the local population.
Colleges and universities in Utah are taking their own steps to address the water crisis. Weber State University created a Water Action Plan to optimize water use. Salt Lake Community College switched multiple irrigation systems. And the University of Utah is installing more efficient water fixtures in its buildings. All three are committed to water conservation efforts — and they are all seeing results.
Kerry Case, the University of Utah’s chief sustainability officer, said a lot about water conservation can be learned by looking at schools across the Intermountain West, particularly other schools in drought-sensitive areas.
“This is of keen and unique importance to universities who are situated in arid regions,” Case said. “There is lots more we still need to do, and lots of plans to do more.”
University water conservation, among other indicators of sustainability, is tracked by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System ( STARS). The system serves as a database for self-reported sustainability indicators, and allows people to see how their university stacks up against the rest. The U. received a gold STARS rating of 65.48 in 2020, with Weber State receiving a silver rating of 61.40 in 2022, though SLCC, Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University were not rated.
The rating, Case said, “really indicates that the university is doing a good job in this space compared to our peers.”
One of the metrics that led to the U.’s rating was the university’s decrease in water usage from 2010 to 2019. In those years, the U. saw its water use, per campus user, drop by nearly 30%, even though the school added about 4,000 campus users in the same nine years, according to The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Case said the decrease could be credited to several campus projects and initiatives.
“Some of that is landscape conversion, away from turf towards more water-wise landscaping,” Case said. “Some of that is improvement in irrigation systems and controls. Some of that is also indoors, by both new construction with more water-efficient fixtures and retrofitting existing buildings with more water-efficient equipment.”
The U.’s efforts at water conversation, Case said, could affect the health of the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, hitting a new record low this summer when it dropped to 4,190.1 feet, according to the Utah Department of Natural Resources.
“We are part of a more sustainable path forward for the Great Salt Lake, not only through our operations … but also the way we contribute through research and education,” Case said.
If the lake continues to
to dry up, the repercussions would be many. The lake’s brine flies and brine shrimp would die off, ski conditions at resorts would deteriorate and the extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop, according to The Salt Lake Tribune and The New York Times. Most concerning, because the lake bed contains high levels of arsenic, “the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous.”
Case listed another contribution from the U.: The Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, which works to keep state policymakers informed on the issues concerning the Great Salt Lake.
Weber State also expressed commitment to water conservation.
Drew Hodge, the water conservation and Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System stormwater coordinator at Weber, said he is cheerful about the university’s water conservation efforts.
“Weber State has done a lot for water conservation,” Hodge said. “We recognize that water is an issue and that we’ve been in a long-term drought.”
Weber State created Hodge’s job in 2016, because of the need for better water management. Hodge said he started drafting a Water Action Plan as soon as he started at the university, and it took more than a year to put together.
“We really tried to get any stakeholder that would be involved and has a reason to care about water on it,” he said.
Hodge said the Water Action Plan is broken down into three categories: culinary water (water used in buildings), secondary water (water used for irrigation) and stormwater. The plan integrated input from students, faculty, staff and people from the surrounding areas. Weber State also created a water council that is open to the public and meets annually.
According to Hodge, the water council created a list of goals that were “realistic, but stringent.”
“We already knew what we needed to do, and we moved forward a little bit faster,” Hodge said. “It really set us up for success.”
Once the plan was implemented, Hodge said, it helped Weber State reduce its secondary water usage by half.
Weber State also requires any new development to use the most efficient water practices available. “Indoors,” Hodge said, “we use EPA WaterSense-certified fixtures. That conserves the most water indoors.”
Also, Hodge said, Weber State is monitoring “distribution uniformity” from sprinklers, to ensure water is distributed efficiently, and the school performs “regular water audits” to make sure the sprinklers are operating as effectively as possible.
Weber State is also implementing xeriscaping, landscaping that requires little to no water, in certain areas on campus.
“We prioritize xeriscaping in areas where it does not make sense to have turf,” Hodge said. That includes smaller areas, big hills, and areas where students and staff don’t gather.
The university also created a program, Water Warriors, to unite and reward Weber State landscapers for water conservation projects.
“Everybody chooses an area that they are struggling with that performs poorly [with water use],” Hodge said. “We do a water audit on it. And then we supply some funds.”
After identifying an area on campus, Hodge said, campus staff make an action plan to upgrade it. An additional audit is conducted to compare water use once the water conservation project is completed. The title Water Warrior is then awarded to the landscaper that has implemented the most water conservation that year. The university completes between 12 and 14 Water Warrior projects annually, Hodge said.
Hodge said the unique features of Weber State’s Ogden campus also help with water conservation — for example, the Duck Pond traps stormwater.
Weber State, Hodge said, wants to help the Great Salt Lake while it is in crisis. “We put into the [Water Action Plan] that we want to be able to eventually allocate our unused water to get to the lake,” he said. The water council is scheduled to formulate a plan to accomplish this goal at their next annual meeting.
Joel Evans, the grounds manager at SLCC, said the college has made recent changes to conserve water, including upgrading the irrigation system at two of its 10 campuses in 2020. A WeatherTRAK Irrigation System monitors water evaporation from sprinklers, among other things.
“It basically monitors daily the wind speed, the heat, the humidity,” Evans said. “It also takes into account what type of crop [is watered], which in our case is predominantly bluegrass, and makes an incremental adjustment on a daily basis.”
The Jordan, Redwood, South City and Westpoint campuses and the SLCC International Aerospace/Aviation Education Center all use this irrigation system, and the new Herriman campus also is expected to use the system.
Smaller campuses, such as the West Valley Center and the Miller campus, haven’t received this upgrade, but Evans said all campuses will use this irrigation system once the money to buy the irrigation systems is secured.
Evans said switching to this irrigation system simplified outdoor water conservation.
“We’re now able to monitor flow a lot better … giving us the ability to identify [when water isn’t being used efficiently] without having to check each individual zone,” Evans said. “It’s a little bit more effective and efficient.”
As The Globe reported in 2021, SLCC has emphasized xeriscaping, particularly within the Redwood campus. The college has plans to prioritize xeriscaping even more, by implementing it across campuses and significantly reducing grass on the Redwood campus.
Evans said that “less than 10, but probably more than five” acres of turf grass will be removed. “Right now, our focus is on areas that aren’t really utilized … I guess low-usage areas, like parking lot islands,” he said. “We’ve made quite a bit of headway there.”
SLCC also began a project in May to update the soccer field with “sports turf.” This type of turf is nonagricultural land, which means it doesn’t require water and will significantly decrease outdoor water usage.
Jacob Freeman from the University of Utah and McCaulee Blackburn from Salt Lake Community College wrote this story, as part of the Daily Utah Chronicle’s November print issue, which focused on collaboration. The story is available on the websites of The Chronicle and The Globe at SLCC, and the print issue can be found in stands on the U. of U. campus. It is published here as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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NOTE TO MEDIA PARTNERS PUBLISHING WORK
We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text:
This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism. Jacob Freeman wrote this story as a journalism student from the University of Utah and McCaulee Blackburn wrote this story as a journalism student from Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
The internet has gotten some things right — mental illness is not the exception.
According to The National Alliance on Mental Health, about 51.5 million U.S. adults struggled with mental health in 2019. That’s one in five adults.
And many of these struggles start early. About half of all lifetime mental illness begins at age 14, the study found, and 75% by age 24.
Generation Z and parts of the millennial generation grew up largely with the internet, exploring a world where there is a community for everyone and sharing their experiences. This cultural shift has led older generations such as Generation X, which spans 41 to 56-year-olds, and baby boomers, 57 to 75-year-olds, to reconsider the stigma around mental health and what living with a mental illness entails.
The internet has helped people find solace, knowing they are not alone, but it may leave people of all ages to wade through misinformation about mental illness, said Jodi Lorenzen, a clinical mental health counselor at Salt Lake Community College’s Center for Health and Counseling.
Lorenzen treats both older and younger patients regularly and said it can be easy to associate getting help with something wrong or shameful.
“People tend to think they are broken if they have mental health problems, more so than physical problems,” she said, explaining that physical ailments are not typically viewed as the person’s fault, whereas mental health issues sometimes, and incorrectly, are.
Lorenzen believes the internet has created a space for mental illness to be normalized. “It’s like ‘Oh, it’s not just me. I can get help for this.’”
Younger generations, who are often more influenced by the people they follow on social media, have been found to be quicker in seeking treatment than their predecessors, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
Despite criticisms that overusing social media can lead to anxiety and depression, the study found that 37% of Gen Z and 35% of millennials were more likely to have received treatment or gone to therapy compared to 26% of Gen X, 22% of baby boomers and 15% of the Silent Generation, or those older than 76.
Ian Eggleston, a 19-year-old biology student at SLCC, believes younger people are more open to treatment.
“[They are more] willing to change and adapt to new information,” he said. “There’s a lot more learning about it [now], and a lot more knowledge.”
Anita Riddle, a 58-year-old music major, recalled students with more severe mental illnesses being educated separately in school.
“As adults,” she said, “they were often institutionalized.”
She feels the recent influx of mental health positivity is partly due to celebrity endorsement, mentioning gymnast Simone Biles, who temporarily withdrew from the Summer Olympics, citing poor mental health.
Because of this, Riddle said, “Others may feel less inhibited to express their mental issues and obtain proper treatment.”
Still, Lorenzen, the mental health counselor, urged people of all ages to be social-media literate.
“There are some really wonderful and credited people out there who know what they are talking about,” she said.
On the other side, however, there might be an unqualified influencer who “just wants to talk about depression.”
There’s a large range of information out there, and sometimes people don’t know how to filter that information, she explained.
In the digital age, it’s easy for anyone to create compelling media, which can make it difficult to know whether information is credible, according to Common Sense Media, a nonprofit offering resources for digital media literacy education. Thinking critically, determining whether a social post is meant to be persuasive and recognizing an influencer’s goal or point of view can help social media users better process good information from the bad.
Lorenzen also encourages individuals to not only think about what they read online but listen to their own internal works and build a relationship with their own emotions.
“[With] all of this information pouring in, not paying attention to what’s going on internally means we are missing out,” she said. “Our bodies and brains are working together for our own good – even if it looks strange.”
Alexie Zollinger wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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NOTE TO MEDIA PARTNERS PUBLISHING WORKWe also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text:
This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Alexie Zollinger wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
Old-timey music plays in the background as a housewife in a dress greets her clean-cut husband in a 1950s-style kitchen.
As they sit down at the kitchen table, the husband falls into a coughing fit, and a narrator pops up in the background: “What Johnny doesn’t know is that he’s contracted polio. It only takes one person infected with the polio virus to bring disease into your home.”
The film — created by students at Spy Hop Productions’ Kahlert Youth Media Arts Center — serves as an allegory for vaccinations in the time of COVID-19, while also reminding the public of diseases that nearly have been eradicated through immunizations over the decades.
“Vaccines were safe back then; they are safer now,” the video concludes. “Vaccines are the world’s biggest asset against disease.”
More than $74,000 from the CDC Foundation — a private, nonprofit organization that partners with the private sector to promote public health — funded Spy Hop students’ production of the film, posters and an interactive video game.
To share the students’ work locally, Spy Hop partnered with the Salt Lake County Health Department, which plans to share the film, posters and game via social media, community partners and at local outreach events.
“In public health communications, we see art as a tool that helps us turn information and hard data into narratives and images,” said department spokesman Gabriel Moreno. “This is significant because we can leverage arts and digital media to create a common language ... to reach and engage our audiences.”
With $2.5 million in national funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC Foundation provided grants to 30 arts organizations nationwide to build COVID-19 and influenza vaccine confidence in their communities.
“This tool is especially important to us in public health communications when trying to increase COVID vaccine confidence and uptake,” Moreno said.
Students completed the projects as part of Spy Hop’s “Vax to the Max” project. With the help of professional mentors, the students worked in different areas — film, music, audio, graphic design and game design — and were able to gain experience within their respective media spaces.
Students in charge of the PSA video, for example, filmed on location in the basement of a Sandy hotel. They had one day to shoot, which forced them to work efficiently.
“It was a really tight space,” said audio student Soraya Wainwright, who recorded sound during filming. “Having 20 people in one tiny room was super, super busy. It was crazy but really fun.”
As the video’s script went through changes, the film students said, the idea came up to center on the 1950s and polio. The concept originally was to feature a brief flashback to the ‘50s, but they decided to expand it to draw parallels with a virus that primarily afflicted older generations.
“We had to figure things out on the fly,” said student Ceci Davis, a casting producer on the film.
Students from Spy Hop’s audio and music program also wrote the film’s score, making the project collaborative across Spy Hop’s disciplines.
“We listened to ‘50s music and then ... came up with different melodies and beats,” Wainwright said. “We recorded the guitar, drums and piano all in-studio.”
Design students illustrated the graphic poster, with William Wainwright, Soraya’s brother, coding a desktop video game from the ground up using the Unity game engine. The game, published on the game-hosting site itch.io, allows players to act as a vaccine antibody and neutralize pathogens in their way.
As of July 7, 62% of Utahns were fully vaccinated and 29% had received a booster, according to the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.
“I hope [our work] can provide people with more education,” film student Abigail Tello said.
Spy Hop — at 208 W. Harvey Milk Blvd. (900 South), Salt Lake City — will showcase the film, poster and video game Saturday, July 16, at its monthly block party, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Spy Hop will also provide food and beverages, as well as free vaccinations and testing.
Cristian Martinez wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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NOTE TO MEDIA PARTNERS PUBLISHING WORK
We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text :This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Cristian Martinez wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
