Delaware Sea Grant’s Ed Lewandowski and colleagues at the Sustainable Coastal Communities Initiative (SCCI) that he coordinates, in partnership with others at the University of Delaware, have created the Delaware Resilience Awareness Program (DelRAP) to engage the public in documenting and helping others learn about the ways intensifying storms and flooding are already affecting Delawareans. Through a series of workshops throughout the state, DelRAP will share information with community members and invite them to contribute personal experiences, through both stories and photos, for a digital storytelling project.

DelRAP is the first educational initiative of the Coastal Resilience Design Studio (CRDS), a planning group that resulted from Delaware Sea Grant funding and facilitation for researchers, educators, agency representatives, students, and community members to determine how to study and respond to issues affecting Delaware’s coastlines and coastal communities. The CRDS was initiated by Dr. Jules Bruck with the Landscape Architecture program, a SCCI partner in UD’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.