Sharing Stories and Listening to One Another: The Declaration of Independence at 250 is a project devoted to positioning community institutions to help Americans, wherever they come from and whoever they are, mark and make sense of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence together. In this planning phase, five humanities councils are partnering with public libraries to train at least 175 discussion leaders and create toolkits to guide future library-based community conversations. Our project activates the long-standing partnerships between humanities councils and public libraries to ground conversations locally and hear from community members providing the stories that make up “a full and inclusive history.” As part of this project phase, the Federation convened 24 councils from all over the nation and their library partners in March 2024 to hear from those involved in this IMLS-funded planning grant and imagine what their own community conversations might look like if the Federation secures a future IMLS implementation grant.