Avery Gonzales: Film Artist Gonzales
Avery is passionate about art, particularly film and media, so for his project, he wanted to share that passion with underprivileged children. His first idea was to have everyone in our English 2010 class donate our old technology such as: iPods, cameras, etc. to the children in need. Realizing that wasn’t very realistic, he came up with a new plan. He contacted an organization called Spy Hop. Spy Hop is a digital arts after school program for kids. They teach kids how to use media and “bring [their] artistic vision[s] to life.” Their slogan is: “Youth Media Matters”. Avery tried to arrange a time for Spy Hop to go into an elementary school and work with the kids. Unfortunately that plan also fell through because the only time Spy hop had available was at 6 pm. That was a problem because the kids wouldn’t be in school then, and it would be too difficult to transport them to and from the activity. As you can see, there were some details that complicated the whole process.
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Even though there were some obstacles along the way, Avery finally figured out how he could use his passion to serve others. He decided to document all of our classmate’s service project reflections. In order to do this, our class put our desks in a circle and we each took a turn explaining what we did for our service projects. We reflected on how the service helped others and what we learned from each one. While we discussed the service we did, Avery filmed us. He said, “I will upload each video into the class online magazine,” so that when we go through and read about each person’s service project, we will be able to watch the explanation and class discussion on each one. Therefore, Avery’s service was to our class members.
I thought that Avery’s project was a great idea! It was a fun way to use his filming talents to document all of our hard work in and outside the class. Avery was nice to provide that service for our class. One of our classmates, said, “I will enjoy going back to watch everyone discuss their service projects!” She, along with many other students in our class are grateful for Avery’s service, so that we can all go back and enjoy watching our hard work from this semester.
Author and photographer: Emma Bergstedt