Two Pitt-Johnstown students spend some of their free time listening to people’s stories.

Sophomore Molly Verostick and freshman Nicole Fuschino created a Facebook page, Humans of Johnstown, late last summer. They said their inspiration for the page was a social media account called Humans of New York.

“We made our account similar to Humans of New York, but we tailored it to our area. It all goes back to spreading acceptance and positivity,” Fuschino said.

The account is focused on individuals who Verostick and Fuschino interview and take photographs of. Then, they post their stories online.

Verostick said that the goal of the page is to talk about the community in a positive light.

“(Nicole and I) have lived in Johnstown our whole lives, and we’re open-minded people, but we saw a lot of close-minded people.

“You can’t know what other people are going through, so when they’re willing to share their stories, it can spread more caring beliefs,” Verostick said.

Fuschino said she agreed that there is power in telling people’s stories.

“You can relate to people when you know more about them,” Fuschino said.

Pitt-Johnstown assistant professor Jeremy Justus was interviewed last semester by the Humans of Johnstown founders. In his interview, he spoke about empathy.

“The more you can empathize with other people, the more good you can do. You can better understand that person as a fellow human being, caught in a series of intricately connected series of situations, and, in that regard, they’re just like anybody else,” Justus said.

Verostick said she wants people to talk about things that others can relate to.

“I always tell people that we’re waiting for them to start rambling in an interview. What people ramble about is what they’re really passionate about,” Verostick said.

The page has about 1,500 likes on Facebook, but Fuschino said that, sometimes, 7,000 people see their posts.

“We want peoples’ minds to be opened. It’s a movement,” Fuschino said.