It's all good

Hola everyone. This morning the Grand Rapids Community Media Center held a teacher orientation for the public school system in GR. We basically let the teachers know how to use our Media Center to help them in the classroom. I presented on digital storytelling and talked to a Spanish teacher about helping out in his classroom. I never thought that I would be able to use Spanish this much during my VISTA year, and it has really been helpful in a lot of situations. We did demos on how to use cameras and iMovie. Overall it was a success.

Summer is winding down, and the two youth programs we had going on are finished. It was pretty intense, working with young artists in the morning and then at-risk youth in the afternoons. It is nice to actually have a lunch hour these days.

The GLBT digital storytelling program is up and running. I have 6 youth involved, they are all high school, and really fun to work with. The word is getting out, and I have a lot of requests for adult classes on digital storytelling. Digital storytelling has been such an easy way to get in touch with people who want to make a smaller, non-intimidating work of video.

The GRCMC has been awesome to work at because as a staff member I can pretty much do what I want with the resources they have. Everything is volunteer based, and we just need people to put the time in to do things. For example, we have a new sound system in our theater, and have been putting on music concerts. I started setting the lights and programed the light board, and so far have lit 14 bands from GR and beyond. I am trying to take advantage of everything I can here during my year of service.

I am pumped for the NAMAC conference in OCT. and hope to see some familiar faces there!!

Pre-production for fall projects with youth are in the works...

Have a spectacular day!
Sarah

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Sarah Pierantoni's Recent Field Reports

signing off

This year has put me in touch with so many opportunities, great people, and most of all experience in the indy media field. It was great to keep in touch with everyone, and I am off to Cali to get married before starting a 3 month volunteer gig in Denmark with an independent media program called FutureKulture. I hope to catch you all at future conferences, and good luck with the journey. …read more

Breaking the Surface

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I heart my org

Half way through the VISTA experience and ready to start new projects for the remainder of the service year. In the education department, I will be working with youth on Tuesdays, creating stop-motion animation projects, and possibly digital stories, and integrating uploading projects online into the class. Thursdays will consist of working with a program called Girls Empowering Together. …read more

post-austin

The NAMAC conference was an experience. It was great to reconnect with CTC VISTA Project peeps, learn about new media arts happenings and experience a great new city. It is hard to say how the conference was overall. Each panel was completely different from the next, and hardly seemed related to the previous one. …read more