Stories of Peace project connects students with nonprofits
While some may see Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a one-day annual celebration, teams of Media School students took the holiday one step further.
Students worked for 40 days after Martin Luther King Jr. Day to produce media projects for organizations in the Bloomington community.
Their projects are part of Stories of Peace, a service project collaboration between The Media School and the City of Bloomington’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration Commission. The goal of the project is to commemorate King’s legacy and promote his ideals of peace, community and nonviolent communication.
Katie Beck, associate director of student services, experiential education, said she hopes that through this project, Media School students can begin to feel more connected to the larger Bloomington community. It also gives community organizations access to a media project, such as a promotional video or an online presentation, that they can use how they see fit.
“We really have an amazing, robust community,” Beck said. “This project helps build bridges between the students and the community.”
Student teams were assigned to one community partner each: Harmony Middle School, the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation, My Sister’s Closet of Monroe County and a second grade class from Rogers Elementary School.
The teams will present their projects at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Franklin Hall commons for students, faculty and community members to view. The presentation will be a chance for the teams to showcase their projects and reflect on the past 40 days, Beck said.
The project not only works to highlight important community partners — it also gives students an opportunity to work with clients and gain practical, real-world experience, Beck said.
The Harmony Middle School team is producing a video to highlight ways to address the rising homeless population. The My Sister’s Closet team is creating an online media presentation for the organization’s website, GoFundMe page and social media accounts to tell the story of its diverse volunteers. At Rogers Elementary, the student team is documenting students’ learning about and writing fables demonstrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideals.
Junior Emma Hamilton is working on the student team at the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation. She helped produce a video telling the stories of Lotus volunteers. The video will be three to five minutes and will highlight how the volunteers align with King’s ideals.
She said the video will focus on how much of a family the volunteers are and how they work together to produce their annual music festival.
“Everything they do is part of a bigger picture,” Hamilton said. “They do it because they love seeing people enjoy music.”
Hamilton said she’s learned a lot about how to coordinate people and run a project, but she’s also learned so much more about Lotus and the Bloomington community.
“I think overall it’s good to highlight these people who are doing so many good things behind the scenes,” Hamilton said.
She said she’s started developing relationships with people who volunteer at Lotus.
“All the people there are so genuine,” Hamilton said. “There are all kinds of people who volunteer and who want the best for people.”