During trying times, there’s often a person, a friend, an event, a quote, a hobby, something that helps us cope when we think we can’t.

Beginning Friday, Oct. 2, at the Chester Meeting House, community members are encouraged to come hear some of these stories from other community members in What Got Me Through. Performed via one-act, vignette-style plays by a cast of talented, local actors, these stories are being told in an effort to raise awareness about building healthy assets for youth (and others) in Chester, Deep River, and Essex.

Tri-Town Youth Services (TTYS) has been working to gather these important, inspiring, life changing stories from residents for the past several months as part of the 2015 Year of the Story. With a myriad of meaningful narratives collected, Ivoryton Playhouse Director Jacqui Hubbard is currently in the process of coordinating the theatrical side of things, working with the story gatherers and storytellers, performers, the technical crew, visual artists, and art educators. In addition, Community Performance International Artistic Director Richard Geer and playwright Jules Corriere are on board to produce this potent compilation of tales of truth and bring them to the Meeting House stage.

“What Got Me Through tells the tales of our community’s capacity to support, empower, engage, commit to, and value each other; ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” said Cate Bourke, prevention coordinator at TTYS.

“This is a wonderful way for the public to learn about growth assets, as well as a chance to hear the community’s stories,” said TTYS Executive Director Gail Onofrio. “The identity of the individuals will be camouflaged, all the characters will be composite characters, and all stories will be given the reverence they deserve.”

Bourke added, “The whole idea with all of this is to bring the community together so we can all work to combine our efforts to provide our children with the strength to resist the use of substances and other unhealthy behavior by growing their awareness of assets.”

Performances of What Got Me Through will also provide the setting for TTYS release of the 2015 Report to the Tri-town Community, including the results of this year’s Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors survey that was administered in grades 7 to 12 in January.

“The results of the survey, and what we do next with those results, will ensure that we ‘tri-towners’ remain on track to support, empower, engage, commit to, and value the children and youth in our community today, i.e., to get them through the difficult moments that require resilience that they, too, will inevitably face,” said Bourke.

What Got Me Through will be performed on Friday Oct. 2, and Saturday Oct. 3 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 4 at 2 p.m.. For information or tickets (the performance is free, but tickets are required), contact Tri-Town Youth Services at 860-526-3600 or stop by the office at 56 High Street, Deep River.