On July 4, Glenwood Springs residents will have a chance to do more than celebrate Independence Day — they can help bring the words that started it all to life.

Local historian Angie Parkison is inviting the community to gather Friday for a nonpartisan public reading of the Declaration of Independence near the Sayre Park gazebo. The reading will begin at 10 a.m., with Glenwood Springs City Council members Sumner Schachter and Erin Zalinski leading attendees in alternating sections of the historic document.

The event will include live patriotic music before and after the reading, performed by volunteer musicians connected to Symphony in the Valley. Attendees are encouraged to bring folding chairs.

Parkison said the idea came from an event she and her husband attended about 20 years ago at a Shaker Museum in upstate New York.

“It turned out to be inspirational,” Parkison said. “My husband and I were both really touched by reading that aloud with other people that just gathered to be Americans.”

This will be the first time Parkison has organized the event in Glenwood Springs, but she said the idea has stayed with her for years.

“I’ve had it in the back of my mind that we should do it here in Glenwood, and this just seemed the right time to do it,” she said.

Parkison, who wrote “Hope and Hot Water,” an in-depth book about Glenwood Springs’ early history, said she hopes the gathering gives people a chance to come together at a time when divisions often feel louder than common ground.

“With the climate we have right now of, ‘Are you left or right? Are you a local or are you from out of town? Were you born in the U.S. or are you a foreigner?’ — all of that — I just feel like this is something that can make a difference, at least for an hour,” Parkison said. “I want to have an opportunity to do something myself, even if it’s just for a little bit, to make people realize we have more in common than we do differences.”

The reading itself is expected to take about 10 minutes. Schachter and Zalinski will each lead one side of the group through alternating sections, with some portions read together.

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Copies of the Declaration of Independence will be available at the event. Posters around town also include a QR code attendees can use to pull up the document on a phone or tablet.

“I think the idea that people will gather to celebrate being Americans is a great thing,” Parkison said. “All of those people that are doing things to support it means an awful lot.”

Parkison said she hopes several hundred people attend, though she said it is hard to know what to expect for a first-time event.

“I hate to get my hopes up, but I really hope it’ll make a difference,” she said.

For Parkison, the event is meant to be simple: music, neighbors and the shared act of reading one of the country’s founding documents aloud.

Regardless of politics, Parkison said, everyone is invited.