This is the letter we are sending to all the schools this week:
Dear Steubenville Schools:
We are excited to offer you an opportunity to join in a community wide outreach that we hope will bring a sense of solidarity, confidence and hope to Steubenville in a fun and energetic way, through the creativity, humor and insight of your students.
Inspired by the, “Kid President Pep Talk,” on Youtube, we began to question how to harness the optimism and energy we saw demonstrated in that short clip, and transform it into a dynamism that would motivate our community. We know the greatness and potential of Steubenville, but in recent months for a number of reasons, much of the positive energy has been stifled.
To turn that around in a positive direction we’ve created a “Kid Mayor Pep Talk” video creation opportunity that we would like to share with your school. It’s exciting! If you haven’t seen the Youtube video, just look up “Kid President Pep Talk” and you will understand.
As I write this, a promotional video is being produced by the Franciscan University of Steubenville TV Production Class that in the theme of the, “Kid President Pep Talk,” that will challenge your students to make Steubenville AWESOME. This promotional video will be shot with local students and be less than 5 minutes in length. It will ask your students, “What is it going to take to make Steubenville awesome? What are you going to do to make Steubenville awesome? What would you say in a pep talk for Steubenville?” It will introduce a video opportunity whereby students of grades 3 through 12 may submit videos of 2 minutes or less and all who submit will get public recognition. There will be separate categories for Elementary (3-6), Jr. High (7-8) and High School (9-12).
We are excited about the potential to invigorate our community that this project has, but it cannot be accomplished without your support. We would like to ask you as a school for 3 things:
1 . Select a contact person at your school through whom we can consistently communicate about this competition. Please have that person e-mail Katie Hess at khessfus@gmail.com, a volunteer at Mama Nita’s Coffeehouse Ministry, for further information.
2. Schedule a 20 minute school assembly on March 8 or during the week of March 11-15, during which the DVD including the “Kid President Pep Talk,” and promotional video for Steubenville Kid Mayor submissions will be shown on a big screen. For this event, your school would have to provide all equipment. We will bring the DVD to your school the afternoon of March 7, or the morning of March 8, dependent the pre-arrangements of your contact person.
We will be happy to have a member of our team come to your school to address the student body after the DVD and provide further details and motivation about this project. If viewing the DVD in a large assembly setting is not possible due to facility limitations or scheduling challenges, the DVD can be shown in all classes of one subject. We will have full details for this event as well as submission forms available on the United Peace Movement website www.unitedpeacemovement.com in the near future.
3. Schedule a second school assembly, April 19th, or after, to show a DVD of highlights from the video submissions of how to make Steubenville awesome, along with an award ceremony for participants at your school, a motivational speech, an address from a city leader, and/or presentation of opportunities to get involved (summer activities, volunteer opportunities). We would like to work with you to cater to the needs of your students and make this an energized event, celebrating the vision of the students and empowering the faith and potential they see.
Thank you for all that you are already doing to serve the students here in Steubenville. We look forward to working with you to build momentum that will empower student to articulate the dreams they have for this city, and give them courage and optimism in making those dreams a reality.
Sincerely,
Kid Mayor Planning Committee
This project is a joint volunteer effort of the United Peace Movement, Franciscan University of Steubenville TV Production class, Mama Nita’s Coffeehouse Ministry, and other energized citizens of Steubenville.
