Don’t throw damaged memories away! Local Colorado nonprofit can help preserve wet photos, videos and other memorabilia
Denver/Boulder & Northern Colorado – As flood waters recede and clean-up efforts begin, a local nonprofit organization wants to educate the public to not to throw away priceless memories, even if they appear ruined. Wet and dirty photos and videos can often be salvaged, and member companies and organizations of The Memory Preservation Coalition opened Memory Rescue Centers across the greater Denver area and in Fort Collins on Tuesday to help flood victims – from Colorado Springs to the Wyoming boarder – do just that at no cost to them.
Flood victims can go to any Memory Rescue Center for information, assistance and resources to rescue their photos, videos, films and other memorabilia. Memory Rescue Centers will have on-site wash-and-dry stations free for use, free take-away information on how to salvage photos and home movies, Flip-Pal mobile scanners free for use, as well as extensive services to digitize photos, slides, videos, film and other memorabilia at a discount.
As people begin sifting through their water-logged homes, most will inevitably come across precious memories – photos, slides, videos and other memorabilia – that have become water-logged, buried in mud or otherwise damaged in the disaster.
“The most important thing right now is to get the word out that wet or muddy memories are not necessarily lost, and that people should not throw them away,” says Gwen Scherer, owner of Boulder County company Memories to Digital and co-founder of The Memory Preservation Coalition. “Many of these priceless items can be saved, and we’re here to help.”
Gordon Nuttall, CEO of Couragent, maker of the Flip-Pal mobile scanner and co-founder of The Memory Preservation Coalition, has experience with just this sort of situation. In 2012, the Flip-Pal Cares team was instrumental in helping rescue photos damaged in Superstorm Sandy. With Flip-Pal mobile scanners in hand, Union Beach, N.J., resident Jeanette Van Houten and personal historian Mary Danielsen led a massive photo-scanning drive that resulted in the recovery of more than 30,000 water-damaged photos.
With Nuttall’s firsthand experience, The Memory Preservation Coalition is setting-up Memory Rescue Centers throughout the greater Denver area. Memory Rescue Centers will open on Tuesday in Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver and Lone Tree at the following locations:
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Memories to Digital – Boulder, 2525 Arapahoe Ave in the Village Shopping Center near McGuckin Hardware, 303-554-7100; open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
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Memories to Digital – Lone Tree, 8481 S. Yosemite in the Home Depot shopping center, 303-799-1677; open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
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Leave A Legacy – Fort Collins, 1827 E. Harmony Rd, 970-226-0102; open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday.
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Leave A Legacy – Denver, 487 S. Broadway, Suite 100 (southwest of Sam’s Club), 303-623-0607; open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
If flood survivors can’t get to a Memory Rescue Center, they can call for advice and help over the phone, or follow three simple steps to start the rescue process at home:
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Clean – If covered with mud and debris, use a tub of distilled or purified spring water to rinse photos and videos. Very gently agitate the media to remove dirt—do not rub them!
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Dry or freeze
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Dry – Blot or hang photos to dry and stand video tapes on edge.
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Freeze – It’s a little known fact that freezing delays damage. Place wet items in freezer bags, store them in the freezer, then dry and restore them in the future.
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Digitize – Scan wet photos, being careful to wipe the scanner glass between each use. Once dry, video tapes can be digitized and the videos transferred to DVD or hard-drive.
About the Memory Preservation Coalition
The Memory Preservation Coalition is a nonprofit organization with the mission of educating the public about the importance of preserving memories. The mission is accomplished through an alliance of companies, small businesses and other nonprofit organizations whose products and services facilitate the mission. For more information, visit http://memorypreservationcoalition.org/ or find us on Facebook.
About Memories to Digital
Memories to Digital is a local company dedicated to helping people enjoy, share and preserve their photo, video, film and audio memories in a digital format. Started in 2003, Memories to Digital has stores in Boulder and Lone Tree with a full-range of services to digitize media or create custom-edited productions from the digital memories. Visit www.mtdigital.com or find Memories to Digital on Facebook.
About Leave A Legacy
Leave A Legacy preserves memories with digital creations, taking old media such as film, video, old audio, slides, negatives and documents and digitizing them with any sort of editing, restoration or formatting requested. It can produce CDs, DVDs, books, reprints, photo gifts, DVD slideshows and digital files for customers to share with family and later generations. Visit www.leavealegacytoday.com.
About the Flip-Pal mobile scanner
The Flip-Pal mobile scanner redefines photo and document scanning. With its patented flip-and-scan technology, the scanner is placed on an object, keeping it safely in place rather than having to remove it from an album or frame. For more information, visit www.flip-pal.com.
Other Memory Preservation Coalition member organizations helping with the effort include Deena Coutant of DigiDeena Consulting and Julie Kessler of Insight to Orde