Community Connections Receives Award for Winooski Video Project

Community Connections received the Lights! Camera! Learning! Student-Produced Video Award for their Winooski Video Project. Congratulations to student producers: Luke Hammer, Ian Watkins, and Cerri McCaffrey and to Community Connections Assistant Director Bill Merrylees.

The Vermont Center for Afterschool Excellence made the award, which included $250 and three Flip cameras, at the Vermont Afterschool Conference in Killington on October 22nd. 

The Winooski Video Project was the culmination of work by Montpelier and U-32 middle school students who met after school at Onion River Community Access (ORCA), and traveled to sites in the community, documenting the work of a reptile biologist studying the Eastern wood turtle, the state archeologist work on archeological sites on the river, kayak touring and downriver kayak racing, conservation work of Friends of the Winooski, and more.

This video premiered at a public reception during the Winooski Sojourn, an end-to-end river paddle & conservation event associated with the Lake Champlain Quadricentennial in the summer of 2009.  It also has been broadcast on local TV and was included in the Green Mountain Film Festival in Montpelier.

Community Connections serves youth from Montpelier, Calais, Berlin, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester with engaging, enriching programs during all out-of-school-time periods. Underlying all programming is the mission to make a positive difference in the lives of the area's youth, encourage healthy behaviors and decrease substance abuse.

Vermont Center for Afterschool Excellence is a public-private statewide partnership dedicated to supporting and sustaining innovative learning opportunities that extend beyond the school day for all Vermont's children and youth.

Find out more at http://vermontafterschool.org/lights_camera_learning/video-library-2/winning-videos-for-summer-2010/.