Archive for the ‘School’ Category
Leila and a little PB : Shelby County Backpack Program Feeds our Kids
GUESS WHAT???? Kroger has peanut butter on sale – 10 for $10 – making them just $1 a piece. Soooo when you’re shopping for your bread and eggs to save you during the snow storm, you should pick up some peanut butters!
Shelby County Public Schools sends home food to the neediest children in our community through the backpack food program to keep them fed while they’re away from school. As I have worked on many of my documentary projects, I got to see how important this opportunity is to the survival of kids in our own town. The program runs off of donations from our community, both food and monetary. Peanut butter is a staple for longer breaks and snowy times. Kids can eat for days on a jar :)
Feel free to drop your PB by the store and I will take care of it. You can even drop it by the Shelbyville branch of Republic Bank and at the School District’s Central Office on Main Street.
Together, lets stock up their pantry!
Blessed
I’m whooped, and I’m working as hard as I can on all of this goodness…so I’ll be short here. I am one little blessed lady, living my little dream. And I am so thankful to each of you for being a part of it.
A sweet phone call
This morning I spent some time at the capital building (more on this in the next post), but as soon as I left I got a phone call from my girls in Bowling Green. Click here for the story I spent much of my spring semester on. I fell in love with these little ladies and their silly phone call this morning was a welcome break to my serious day. I miss, miss, miss them and would do anything to be able to teleport myself there for a good singing of ‘Stanky Leg’ and a dancing like no one is watching to Hannah Montana’s Hoedown Throwdown. They’re the sweetest. Here a few photos I took after my project was complete.
Hannah Montana time…
Sweet Jacqueline’s birthday.
Now I’m a WKU alumni….crazy, right?
Sunday I took a little walk to receive my diploma. It was tons of fun and I am REALLLYYYY going to miss my photojournalism family. We have all grown sooo close through many hours in the lab, late nights editing and workshop bonding time. I walk away from Western knowing that it was the most perfect fit for me. School grew my business skills, my photo love and introduced me to so many amazing people and for that I am most thankful. I met so many of my amazing clients at school and made jillions of friends in all the departments I was active in.
Lots of my clients ask about my experience at WKU, and I always say, ‘it’s the most awesome place on Earth – better than Disney World.’ They usually laugh, and I continue with ‘no really – I swear, it’s the most amazing school EVER….have you visited yet?’ I am absolutely in love with my Western, from the butt-shaping walks uphill (both ways, I swear) to the constant rain Bowling Green seems to face. I’m obsessed with the bunny statues at the top of the hill and our infamous ‘blood clot’ of a mascot.
It is with a tear or two (hundred) that I am packing my boxes and hugging my friends good-bye, because I really am going to miss the most beautiful campus in the world. My college experience was truly blessed and wonderful, but I am very excited that I get to leave school with a game plan and a career in tact. I look forward to having one main focus: Lizzie Loo. I am so excited to not have to bend my life around classes and projects. To be able to complete tasks in a timely fashion and be available to answer my phone more often :-)
The pictures below should be credited to Jake Stevens, one of the many wonderful people that made Western such a joy.
Chatting with President Ransdell….he wouldn’t let me go.
Myself, Joy and Libby – some of my best girlfriends.
I’m trying to track down a photo of my sparkle-tabulous hat…but for now, here’s an image of me.
BabyGirl Photo Project
Last semester my project was on the Bears football team.
For my final semester I latched onto the idea of girls growing up quickly – and how poverty pushed that process along at an alarming rate. I have kept this project under wraps for some time, because I was unsure of how I felt about the images.
I know that this project isn’t complete. I believe this series aspires to be told in book form. Image after image that cries for a fix in our nation’s young women. I was shocked on a regular basis as I became a fifth-grade girl for a few months. I wonder how this generation of young women will change our world. Will they grow into homemakers? Will they avoid marriage at all costs? Because that is their attitude right now – that marriage isn’t made to last, that is it painful and not worth the time. Will they grow to be strong or fall to everything that pushes at their emotions? Will they stay away from pregnancy before middle school ends? High school?
I still don’t know what to think about this. My hope is that, for now, these images be seen. I hope that these images push women to become involved in the younger generations. Through my work with the girls I saw how much a mentor program of some sort changed them. Having a good example and someone to hold them accountable really helped. I look forward to finding a new group of girls when I return home and latching onto them. I encourage you to do the same. Find one little lady that could use a mentor, a listening ear, someone to fight for her character. Engage yourself with her, support her and love on her – for that is all these young women need – love.
All I know for sure if that I LOVE the young women that you see in these images. They have each added to and changed my life and perspective on the world. I also know that I will continue to work on this project for many years to come – and I would love to know what you think about what you see.
At the completion of the semester, my class’ projects went up for review. An exit exam of sorts – photo style. You can listen here to what the PAC team had to say about my project.
And here is a link to the homepage if you’d like to understand a little more or listen to other reviews.
Enjoy and comment. Remember, for each comment made, a canned good is sent to feed a needy child over the weekend through Shelby County’s backpack food program.
A link to more images and a slideshow I prepared for my Women’s Studies class.
Girls Project
For the semester I have been spending lots and lots of time with a group of girls in Bowling Green. They are elementary school girls that I have been working to develop a project on. No pictures have made it to the blog until today, because I am still unsure of what I think about the project. It started out at Girls Growing Up too fast, morphed to children in poverty back to educational disparity and now to I’m not really sure what.
All I do know is that I have had a lot of fun with the girls I am photographing. We sit and talk, play on the playground and learn from one another. Yesterday I swung and talked with one of the girls for at least an hour about what she can be when she grows up. Today my buns and legs are paying the price – oh well. We’ve been doing our homework together, talking about boys and sharing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Most of the girls live in section 8 housing, a community I wasn’t always soo fond of. The more I learn about these little ladies, the more I see their resiliency and their genuine hope to be strong, productive women. I am learning that you really can become a product of your community, if and only if you never see anything past your little circle of friends. My hope for these girls is that they will see just out of their community and learn that there is a whole world for them to explore.
For now we’re working on their camera skills…here is a photo 5th grader Sara took of me. I made a print of this and they think it is absolutely the most hilarious thing they have ever seen. Enjoy this pretty day – I’m off to the playground.
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More Dorothy and Alice
Here’s the tail end of photographs from Shelby County High School’s winter production of “Dorothy Meets Alice.”
Dorothy Meets Alice
More soon. For now one of my sister, Sara, as Dorothy and my lovely summer assistant, Corie, as Alice.
Bears’ Banquet
Just a bit before I left school to come home I completed my story with the Bears. Here is a link to the final story about Coach Danny Carothers and the youth football team he coaches, in case you need to catch up. I spent hours and hours with the team documenting their growth and Danny’s involvement in their lives.
When Danny called me to remind me about the banquet, I was a bit surprised when he asked me to be their guest speaker. I was a bit confused on why the boys would think listening to me over a WKU football player or sports personality of the like was the way to go. Danny reassured me that when he asked his son and a few of the other players they were super excited…so was I up for it, or what?
I accepted and (more nervously than I expected) attended the banquet and talked about hard work. I knew the boys had seen me give up many hours of my life, most of my Saturdays and lots of dinners with my friends to spend time with them – so a spiel on hard work and getting you what you want seemed appropriate.
It all seemed to go well and the boys really enjoyed seeing the photos of them. I drug along my computer and let the images play all night in a slide show. It was definitely fulfilling to see the project come full circle. I think they finally understood why I took their picture every time they cried and why I felt it was important to be with them ALL THE TIME. I hope you enjoy these – and thanks to Jake for shooting me speaking.
Lots of Bear love was shared – as always.
A note to my Bears: You pictures will be in the mail soon – if you didn’t get on the list, be sure to email me or give me a call with your address. Hope you all are well! Thank you again for sharing your lives with me.
OMG!!! She is so cute!!! Puppies love their peanut butters!!! <3