Bringing together service groups around a broadcast of Everyday Heroes

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Abstract

Everyday Heroes is a one-hour film that documents the AmeriCorps experience. Local AmeriCorps programs, commissions, and other service-related organizations can utilize a community broadcast of the film as an outreach opportunity to highlight members' service and to help raise public awareness of what organizations and communities are doing through service. This effective practice outlines ways to arrange broadcast of the film and to link the showing to community events, especially in conjunction with "Make a Difference Day." Rick Goldsmith and Abby Ginzberg, co-producers of the film, shared this effective practice via the AmeriCorps e-mail discussion list (ACList) on May 24, 2002.

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Issue

Raising public awareness of national and local service organizations in conjunction with the broadcast of the documentary, Everyday Heroes.

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Action

Use the film to highlight local service organizations:
  • Local AmeriCorps programs, commissions, and other service-related organizations can utilize a community broadcast of the film, Everyday Heroes as an outreach opportunity to highlight area service programs.
  • Think of ways that a public television broadcast about youth, service, and AmeriCorps would be good for the local community. How can the broadcast enhance educational outreach or recruitment, or procure media coverage for local organizations or programs? How can the broadcast be linked to the community's "everyday heroes"?
  • Use the film as leverage to feature the community's "everyday heroes."
  • Use e-mail discussion lists and publications to advertise the broadcast of the film and related community service efforts, and to draw in viewers from all aspects of the community.
Broadcast the film locally:
  • Contact the station manager or program director of the local television station (PBS affiliate).
  • Ask if the station has selected a date for broadcast of Everyday Heroes. If not, ask to be notified when the date is selected.
  • Let the station manager know that the program is available from the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) on a satellite "feed-for-record" (July 21, 2002).
  • Let the station manager know that it will cost the station little or nothing to broadcast Everyday Heroes for several showings over a period of three years.
  • Inform the station manager that local service organizations are available to do outreach for the program, and ask about ways to most effectively do so.
Bring together service groups on the day of the broadcast:
  • Suggest a partnership with the local television station and local service organizations that would culminate in an event around an October broadcast of Everyday Heroes and "Make a Difference Day."

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Context

The documentary, Everyday Heroes, tells the story of a 21-member AmeriCorps team serving as tutors, mentors, and health educators with K-12 students in Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland, California. The film depicts a diverse and dedicated group of 18 to 26-year-olds engaged in service to the community, and examines the potential of national service to address critical problems that confront 21st-century American society.

Everyday Heroes aired on public television in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California in April 2002. With the opportunity to have the film broadcast on public stations nationwide, an outreach program to achieve the goal was set in place. The target time period for the broadcasts was the period leading up to Make a Difference Day in October (2002). Mid-October is also the anniversary for many state commissions on service and of the founding of the AmeriCorps program in 1993.

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Outcome

A screening or broadcast of the film Everyday Heroes can:
  • Serve as a focal point for bringing together various service groups. For example, in April 2002, during National Youth Service Day in Seattle, a half-dozen groups with AmeriCorps' programs put on an event that revolved around the screening of Everyday Heroes. Both the mayor and the governor of Seattle proclaimed the day, "Everyday Heroes Day" in honor of those in service.
  • Highlight local service groups and members
  • increase morale and understanding among service members

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Posted On

May 30, 2002

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For More Information

Rick Goldsmith and Abby Ginzberg
Kovno Communications
Co-producers
2600 Tenth Street #104
Berkeley, CA 94710
Phone: (510) 849-3225

Suzanne Stenson O'Brien
Outreach Coordinator

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Resources

From The Resource Center library:

Everyday Heroes (video)
Item number: V2171

Related Practices

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Related sites

New Day Films: Everyday Heroes

AmeriCorps

Topic Areas

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