Experienced, upper level university student video producers from UC Santa Cruz have been recruited as student interns to serve as mentors and production crew leaders in the San Lorenzo Valley High School video class.

By including university students in the high school class we hope to provide positive examples and inspire the high school students to be active and creative in their video work focusing on social change. We hope to inspire the high school students by guiding them in a process of media creation in which the video skills they have been studying in class can be applied to voice issues important to them. Then, they are being proactive and creative, working together with in a group and within the community.

Want to become a mentor?
If you are a film major at either the University of California at Santa Cruz or Cabrillo College, and would like to become a mentor for our program beginning in September 2006, please contact: Ron Garry 415 459-1823

High Schools
We are looking for local High Schools who are interested in participating in our program beginning September 2006. For further information please contact Ron Garry 415 459-1823

Financial Support
Our first program is coming to a conclusion with the Screening of four student films at The Attic on May 27, 2006. This program was a great success and a poistive impact on our community. Beginning in September we will expand our community-based program to three High Schools in which film majors will be mentored by UCSC students to create documentary films on important local, socially progressive issues in Santa Cruz County. These young film makers need your support for this prograam to continue. Your donations are tax deductible. The following assistance is needed:

• First Annual Documentary Shorts Screening Gala: $2,000 needed to cover costs
• Youth Empowering Youth September 2006-June 2007 program: $25,000 needed to bring this program to completion
• Equipment: Donations of any of the following equipment for shooting and editing will be greatly appreciated

How you can support our upcoming
Youth Empowering Youth program

September 2006-May 2007

Youth Empowering Youth is a program that helps our children find positive ways to be part of our community through socially and community minded issues given voice through the use of film. Young people can be creative, can be an instrument of positive change, and can be an indispensable part of our community. Our first year program has been incredibly successful. Our second year begins in September and we hope to increase the involvement and opportunities we make available by involving three local High Schools this year instead of just one. Each school will produce one or two documentary shorts under the guidance of University of California Santa Cruz film students as mentors. This year we also plan on involving our local experts in film shooting and production this way giving the students an opportunity to learn from professionals in the field. In May we will have our second annual screening gala. In the upcoming months we are also dedicated to finding various venues, such as local community TV, to show the documentaries made by our students.

Anyone who feels good about our program, who appreciates the positive impact we are making with students and our community in general, please consider helping support our upcoming program. Primarily we need financial and equipment support. In the coming weeks we will have a complete budget for the 2006-2007 program available. If want to help our Youth program, or are considering helping, please contact Ron Garry: ron.garry@comcast.net

If you would like to begin supporting us as of now, please visit our contribute page. If you would like to support the program through donation of equipment, please see the wish list.

Thank you so much for considering supporting our youth and community!

Youth Empowering Youth

"Student Films for Social Change"

Visionary Arts & Media Foundation Presents

First Annual
Documentary Shorts Screening Gala
Saturday May 27, 2006

Success!!!

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Over 175 people, standing room only, joined Visionary Arts and Media's Youth Empowering Youth Program on Saturday evening, May 27, 2006, our First Annual Documentary Screening Gala. This was a memorable event for our community, the students and their families, and for all of us involved at Visionary Arts and Media. The Documentary shorts produced by our students were extremely well-made, informative, thought provoking, and entertaining.

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The evening began elegantly at five with wine and cheese, a spectacular vegetable platter, ambience music by vocalist/pianist Catherine McLellan, and the most incredible hospitality and service by the staff of The Attic! During this time we all had a chance to get eat and speak together, which is a joyful way of building community.

Then our program commenced with James Kallas as Master of Ceremonies. James did a spectacular job as video production teacher at San Lorenzo High School. It was his classes that participated in our pilot program, Youth Empowering Youth, for the first time. We at VAM would like to take this opportunity to commend James on his guidance and expertise in supporting his students and we look forward working with him and his class next year.

After James' introductory remarks we had the great pleasure of having the mayor of Santa Cruz, Cynthia Matthews grace our program with opening remarks. Her kindness in commending our program was much appreciated. We are happy, as we manifest our wish to be an integral part of our community as a source of hope for the future and joy getting there.

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Mr Kallas next read the exceptional letter we receive from the governor greeting our gathering. Governor Schwarzenegger wrote: “This tremendous event highlights the civic-minded efforts an cooperative spirit of today's youth. The documentaries being screened are made by visionary adolescents with mentors from UC Santa Cruz who have generously given their time and talent. Your collective efforts advance consciousness, and I commend you for using the arts to inform, educate and empower your fellow citizens. I wish you a memorable event and every continued success.”

We then proceeded into the heart pf the program with Mr Kallas introducing us to each documentary. Afterwards he led an open discussion between the audience and student-film makers. The films were excellent, and it was difficult to tell that this was the students' first documentary. That's Not Me is a film made by Corderro Sweeney, Geoffrey Dinneen, Chelsea Van Bloom, and Elizabeth (Fig) Chilcott, mentored by Rachel Weiss, that hopes to change the typical perceptions adults have of teenagers. Choice or Privilege, an exploration of healthy living in Santa Cruz, is a film made by Tanen Brown, Rebekah Boroweic, Peter Copper, Kayla Chickos, Rory McKee, Ryan Mihous, Skylar Storey, Ian Whitaker, Lucas McFadden McDaniel, mentored by DJ (Derin Turner). The Sky is Red is a film that explores the concept/ idea/ experience of what it means to be ‘homeless' in Santa Cruz. We also had the privilege of screening the documentary What the Camera Could Not Capture , the amazing story about a woman whose only hope was to rely on her talent. Dina babbitt painted her way through the infamous death camp Auschwitz Dina is now eighty and battling for her rights, as her paintings remain captive in the Polish Holocaust Remembrance Museum. A moving highlight of the evening was when we discovered that Dina was in the audience, stood up, and took a bow, to thunderous applause.

Youth Empowering Youth 2006-2007 Program

If you are a High school teacher whose school is interested in becoming involved in our up-coming program, or a High School student wishing to participate, please contact us for further information at ron.garry@comcast.net

If you are a film student at UC Santa Cruz and are interested in applying to be a mentor, please contact: ron.garry@comcast.net