WILL Press Room
Local Actors Star in Fundraiser for Book Mentor Project
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Words in the Wind
7:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 12
A fundraising event for Illinois Public Media’s Book Mentor Project, featuring actors from The Station Theatre, Parkland College Theatre and the University of Illinois Department of Theatre, bringing to life various children’s books in a concert-style performance.
Words in the Wind will take place at Faith United Methodist Church, 1719 S. Prospect Ave., Champaign. Tickets, available at the door, are $10 each.
The first-time event is the brainchild of Tom Mitchell, associate head of the U of I Theatre department, and includes books recommended by The Center for Children’s Books within the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Local musicians will provide vocal, piano or guitar accompaniment for several selections.
“It’s fun way to promote books and learning in a way that we usually don’t get to do,” Mitchell said. “Plus, it offers a unique opportunity to showcase the great acting talent we have in Champaign-Urbana.”
Confirmed performers include longtime Station Theatre regulars Gary Ambler, Joi Hoffsommer and Kay Holley; Parkland College Theatre veteran Dallas Street; U of I Department of Theatre faculty Henson Keys, J.W. Morrissette and Brant Pope, as well as numerous other area stage professionals. Actors will present 22 pieces, ranging from classics such as Peter Pan, The Three Little Pigs and The Wind in the Willows to contemporary works such as Knuffle Bunny, Moo Who and the alphabetic poetry of Alpha Beta Chowder.
“This event is a perfect fit with our goal of generating excitement about books and connecting that enthusiasm to the classroom,” said Molly Delaney, educational outreach director for Illinois Public Media, which includes the WILL television and radio stations.
The Book Mentor Project, in cooperation with Champaign County Head Start, the Champaign Early Childhood Center and local service organizations, provides books to families who otherwise might not have access to books at home. As part of the program, Delaney trains parents, teachers and volunteers on how to interact with children through books, how to use television as a teaching tool and how to use books and related activities to enhance learning.
At its start in 2003, the WILL-TV project assisted 54 families. It currently serves 578 families in Champaign County, trains 60 teachers and 50 volunteers each year, works with 42 classrooms in eight locations and distributes more than 3,500 books to low-income families.
For more information, call 217-333-7300.
Project Connects Area Youth with Kickapoo Park
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
African-American teens from the Danville Boys & Girls Club of Danville spent a day and a half at Kickapoo State Park in Oakwood learning about how they and their families can enjoy Kickapoo and other parks in Illinois.
Read blogs and see video from the teens’ experiences.
The outing at the park on Thursday, June 24, and Friday, June 25, is part of a larger project to connect young people with the outdoors and to improve their media literacy. Later in the summer, the students will re-visit the park with video cameras to film public service announcements aimed at getting other kids out to the park.
Teens learned about park and water safety, and participated in canoeing, nature photography, fishing, stream exploration and hiking. They also helped park scientists study animals in the park by tagging geese and surveying fish populations.
Marc Miller, director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, welcomed the teens to the park and got the outing started.
“Kickin’ it at Kickapoo” is a project of Illinois Public Media’s Youth Media Workshop. The Kickapoo project was inspired by the new Ken Burns’ documentary, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” which will air on PBS stations this September.
“Illinois Public Media wants to be part of efforts to involve more young people in having a direct joyful experience of our natural resources and to engage them using media tools to tell their story of nature,” said Kimberlie Kranich, co-director of the Youth Media Workshop.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is supportive of the effort, with site superintendant John Hott working hard to show the young people a good time. “We are really excited to be reaching out to young people in our community. We’re here to serve them and we want them to know what a great resource is in their back yard,” Hott said.
The river conservation non-profit Prairie Rivers Network helped run the activities. “We’re involved because we want to help sow the seeds for the next generation of conservationists,” said executive director Glynnis Collins. “If these young people fall in love with a place like this now, they will carry it with them for the rest of their lives and play a part in keeping our natural places clean and beautiful for those who come after them.”
The students are excited to be participating, said Rickey Williams, Jr., executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Danville, who had to turn kids away from the program. “There was so much interest in participating that I was able to use it as an incentive to help our youth not only improve their grades, but their attitudes and actions as well,” Williams said.
For more info:
Kimberlie Kranich
Illinois Public Media
217- 244-5072
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Glynnis Collins
Prairie Rivers Network
217- 344-2371
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Links:
Teens Research Assets They Can Use
Monday, May 18, 2009
Teens in the E2Y (Engaging and Empowering Youth) Project want to interview business owners, community leaders and others about opportunities for youth.
African-American teens in Champaign-Urbana live in the community, but often don’t feel part of the community, says Patricia Avery, executive director of the C-U Area Project. “There’s been a disconnect between youth and adults,” she said.
This summer a group of 10 teens in the E2Y (Engaging and Empowering Youth) Project will interview business owners, neighbors, community leaders and others to identify and map opportunities for youth in the cities. “They can find out what kind of recreational opportunities are available in their immediate communities, what kind of job opportunities are available.”
When she grew up, said Avery, older men in the community hired boys for odd jobs and helped them learn self-confidence and a trade. “They got all of that from just being around these older gentlemen,” she said. The E2Y project can connect young people to adults in the community who can provide the kind of information and help that will enable youth to make their lives richer and more rewarding, she said.
Avery asks adults in the community who would be willing to be interviewed by the teens to contact her by email at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or phone at 217-373-2827.
Teens will concentrate on mapping assets in the Garden Hills and Holiday Park neighborhoods in Champaign, the Scottswood neighborhood in Urbana and the North End of both cities. They’ll be using a mapping curriculum developed by the Illinois Rural Families Program.
Illinois Public Media is partnering with the C-U Area Project, the Mental Health Center of Champaign County, and the University of Illinois Community Informatics Initiative in the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences on the project, funded in part by a $10,000 grant from the Lumpkin Foundation. Illinois Public Media will train the teens to make videos of their interviews with people in the community.
Kimberlie Kranich, WILL’s director of community outreach, said students are learning how to use small portable video cameras to interview community members to learn about what’s available and how to publish their findings for others teens and those who work with teens.
“We hope all kinds of people in Champaign-Urbana will be excited to open themselves up to these teens by volunteering to be interviewed as a way to improve the teens’ access to resources and sense of belonging in the community,” she said.
“The information the young people gather will be valuable to others who work with teens and to the entire community,” said Avery. The information will be presented on a special Web site where asset maps will be displayed and in a printed booklet. Then a task force made up of adults and teens will determine where gaps exist in resources for teens and come up with an action plan to close the gaps, said Karen Simms, supervisor of the Community Connections program at the Mental Health Center.
“When kids feel like they play an important role in the community, their investment in the community changes and their parents’ investment changes,” Simms said. “This project will give kids of color the opportunity to be viewed differently and be celebrated for being talented and resourceful.”
Ann Bishop, co-director of the U of I Community Informatics Initiative, said the project is an opportunity for young people and adults to interact in a situation where they are working toward common goals rather than in a situation framed by conflict. “Trying out these relationships when they’re rooted in a sense of trust and optimism can be a bridge to further constructive relationships,” she said. “Ultimately, I hope the project will be one more tiny step in transforming the fabric of our community so it better recognizes the needs and strengths of our youth.”
Hoopeston Youth Project Wins National Award
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Prairie Center Health Systems Inc. and WILL AM-FM-TV have been awarded the Exceptional Rural Program Award by the National Rural Alcohol & Drug Abuse Network Inc. for a project that helped develop an action plan to address the needs of teenagers in Hoopeston.
Prairie Center Health Systems Inc. and WILL AM-FM-TV have been awarded the Exceptional Rural Program Award by the National Rural Alcohol & Drug Abuse Network Inc. for a project that helped develop an action plan to address the needs of teenagers in Hoopeston.
The award, part of the Harold E. Hughes Awards of Excellence competition, is given annually to a rural program that exemplifies outstanding contribution to the rural alcohol and drug abuse field.
As a result of the two-year project in Hoopeston, an in-school Big Brothers-Big Sisters mentoring program was established and is ongoing, matching teens with elementary students in need; a Mayor’s Youth Council, meeting weekly, has been formed by the mayor, giving the youth a direct voice in their community; and a new teen center opened to provide an alcohol-free place for older teens to come to listen to music and dance on a Friday or Saturday night.
WILL and Prairie Center began discussions with both young people and community leaders in Hoopeston, in conjunction with WILL-TV’s airing of the PBS documentary series Country Boys about two teenage boys trying to overcome the poverty and family dysfunction of their childhood in rural America.
In Hoopeston, both teens and adults raised the issue of substance abuse as a particular concern. WILL-AM 580 News examined the challenges faced by teens in Hoopeston with a series of reports by news director Tom Rogers.
The spring 2006 work of Prairie Center and WILL was the springboard for the energized students and adults to come together in the fall of 2006 for a teen-led community-wide town hall meeting organized by the teens and attended by more than 65 community residents. The students challenged the adult audience to help them find more local recreational outlets, more part-time employment, more mentoring and additional outlets for youth to have a say in their community.
Betty Seidel, Prairie Center director of development, said the project was focused on hope. “I think we helped the young people and the community leaders realize that there was hope that they could create more positive opportunities for their youth, for their future leaders,” Seidel said.
Uni High Student Documentary
Monday, November 03, 2008
Disability, Gender and Race in U of I Athletics
WILL-AM 580
A new Urbana University High School student documentary looks at the University of Illinois’ record on disability, gender equity and race relations as seen through the eyes of athletes and coaches.
Students in the class of 2011 researched and interviewed 16 people who overcame obstacles because of race, gender or disability, talking to them about their experiences, said Uni student Maria Gao, who along with Anne Machesky, produced the hour-long documentary, Competing Against Discrimination: Achieving Equality in Athletics at the University of Illinois. It aired at 6 pm Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008, on WILL-AM 580.
“We talked to some amazing people who accomplished a lot at the U of I,” Gao said. “Things are so different today than they were when some of these people were involved in sports at the U of I.” By hearing from athletes and coaches who broke barriers, she and the other students learned to “dream big,” she said.
“I learned about Tim Nugent, who after World War II was the first person to make the college campus accessible to students with disabilities. He made everything accessible with curb cuts and ramps. Now when I see the curb cuts, I know it all started here at the U of I,” she said.
Among those interviewed were Willie Williams, former track athlete, Olympian and assistant coach; J.C. Caroline, former football player and All-American; Karol Anne Kahrs, an administrator who worked for gender equity in athletics; Tony Clements, former football and basketball player; Ted Beach, former basketball player; Shawn Wax, former All Big Ten football player; Joshua George, co-captain of the U of I wheelchair basketball team and a bronze medalist at the 2004 Paralympic Games; Anjali Forber-Pratt, wheelchair track athlete; Gia Lewis, holder of the U of I record in the 20-pound weight throw and discus; and Jean Driscoll, elite wheelchair athlete and eight-time winner of the Boston Marathon.
WILL-AM’s Dave Dickey, who worked with the student producers, said he covered U of I sports for WILL-AM for many years, and knew many of the athletes and coaches. But the students were not familiar with them. “It was fun to see the students have those ‘aha!’ moments,” Dickey said.
“For the People” Looks at Election Issues
Monday, September 22, 2008
Thursday nights in October on WILL-TV
WILL-TV and experts from the U of I Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) will examine how the positions of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain on energy and the economy would affect people in Illinois.
The series, For the People: Election 2008, will also look at the ballot question on whether Illinois needs a Constitutional Convention, and end with an hour-long roundtable discussion on the presidential campaign with a panel scheduled to include former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar.
WILL’s John Paul will moderate the discussions.
Programs and scheduled panelists are:
Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m.: Energy: Don Fullerton and Andrew P. Morriss, both of IGPA;
Oct. 16, 7:30 p.m.: Economy: Elizabeth Powers and Daniel P. McMillen, both of IGPA;
Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m.: Constitutional Convention, Brian Gaines and Richard J. Winkel, both of IGPA;
Oct. 30, 8 p.m.: Pre-Election Roundtable: Former Gov. Jim Edgar, Kent Redfield and Bob Rich, all of IGPA, and state Sen. Mike Frerichs.
Links:
WILL WWII Project Wins Emmy Nominations
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Two WILL-TV programs, both part of the station’s Central Illinois World War II Stories project, have been nominated for regional 2008 Emmy Awards by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Mid-America Chapter.
An hour-long special, which aired as part of the 2008 season of WILL-TV’s Prairie Fire, was nominated in the arts/entertainment program-special category. It included stories about USS Indianapolis survivors, the life of a Japanese-American in an internment camp, and the survivor of a kamikaze attack on the USS Missouri. Other stories featured the experiences of a remarkable woman who served on the front lines in Europe for the American Red Cross, a man who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and one of the first female navigation instructors.
The other nomination, in the historical/cultural-program story/feature category, was for a Prairie Fire story about Tuskegee Airman Col. Elmer Jones, one of six original aviation cadets for the Tuskegee Airmen trained at Chanute Field in Rantoul. Jones, who became ground crew commander, served his country in aircraft engineering in an all-black unit during World War II. He maintains that being in a segregated unit provided an unexpected opportunity for the Tuskegee Airmen. They were able to prove their abilities at a time when people questioned whether African Americans should be allowed to fly and maintain planes.
The hour-long documentary and the video story were produced by WILL-TV’s Denise La Grassa, edited by Eleanore Stasheff and researched by David Noreen. Henry Szujewski was executive producer.
Both the World War II special and the Elmer Jones story can be viewed at http://www.will.illinois.edu/prairiefire.
The Mid-America Emmy Awards will be presented Saturday, Oct. 4, at the Four Seasons Hotel in St. Louis.
Reading Rainbow Winners
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
WILL-TV has announced local winners of the 2008 Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest.
Winners are:
Kindergarten: Paige Olson, Springfield.
1st Grade: T.J. Ross, St. Joseph.
2nd Grade: Ruth Zielke, Champaign.
3rd Grade: Gabriel Berti, Urbana.
Honorable mention winners are:
Kindergarten: Erin Boyle, Bloomington; Calista Clark, Lovington; Nick Phalen, Springfield.
1st Grade: Lacey Edwards, Mt. Pulaski; Alyanna Marie Posadas, Mahomet; Annie Taber, Mahomet.
2nd Grade: William Kieffer, Mahomet; Jani Massey, Watseka; Kimberly Dillman, Urbana.
3rd Grade: Katie Jo Simpson, Hoopeston; Emily Gibson, Champaign; Neha Verma, Forsyth.
More than 300 central Illinois children in kindergarten through 3rd grade created original stories and illustrations for the contest. Their entries were judged for originality, creative expression, storytelling, integration of story and drawings and an interesting plot. All of the children who entered were invited to a Reading Rainbow celebration at WILL’s Campbell Hall. The contest and celebration were supported locally by State Farm Insurance. Barnes and Noble held a special story-signing event for the winning authors.
Honoring Central Illinois Teachers
Monday, June 09, 2008
WILL-TV airs video profiles of 10 outstanding central Illinois teachers.
9 pm Thursday,
June 26
The broadcast of the Golden Apple Awards 2008 ceremony and teacher profiles is an extension of WILL’s efforts to develop the intellectual, emotional and social potential of children. “Our broadcast is designed to capture the special qualities of these skilled and dedicated teachers, reward their achievements, and inspire all those who work to nurture and educate children in central Illinois,” said Mark Leonard, WILL’s general manager.
Central Illinois winners are: Don Jolly, 6th grade, Our Saviour School, Jacksonville; Shameem Rakha, 6th-8th grade reading, Franklin Middle School, Champaign; Hillary Sawyer, 5th grade, Booker T. Washington, Champaign; Elaine Harmon, kindergarten, Thomas Paine Elementary, Urbana; Sheila Stephens, high school science, Illinois School for the Deaf, Jacksonville; Suzanne McDowell, high school cooperative education, Bloomington Area Vocational Center; Nancy Powell, high school math, Bloomington High School; David Hirst, high school Spanish, Normal West High School; Roberta Maubach, 3rd grade, Thomas Metcalf Lab School, Normal; and Tim McCollum, 8th grade, Charleston Middle School.
Golden Apple Central Illinois (GACI) is a new program of the Golden Apple Foundation, an organization that has been celebrating and teaching educators in the Chicago area since 1985. Golden Apple’s principle focus is that all children deserve excellent teachers.
Golden Apple Central Illinois Award-winning teachers receive a paid semester sabbatical at the University of Illinois, a laptop computer, a cash award of $3,000, and the opportunity through the GACI Academy of Educators to create educational programs that have a positive impact on students.
Free Tornado Safety Show
Thursday, March 13, 2008
WILL AM-FM-TV chief meteorologist Ed Kieser will present a free tornado safety seminar at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 10, with tips people can use to protect themselves when tornadoes threaten.
Kieser, now in his 18th year of presenting tornado safety shows, uses spectacular video and graphics to help arm central Illinois residents with information that could save their lives. The seminar takes place at the University of Illinois’ Beckman Institute Auditorium, 405 N. Mathews St., Urbana.
Tornadoes Kill
“Tornadoes have already caused 69 deaths in the United States in 2008,” Kieser said. “The number of fatalities this year is already ahead of the 30-year average for the entire year, and we’re just entering the prime tornado season.”
Free parking for the event is available in the university parking garage at the corner of University Ave. and Mathews. For more information, call 244-5072 or visit the WILL Web site at http://www.will.uiuc.edu.
Managing a Crisis
Rick Atterberry, public information officer for the Champaign County Emergency Management Agency, will also provide information about what to expect from local government in a disaster.
Atterberry will talk about what the Emergency Management Agency does in times of crisis and how people can be prepared during an emergency.
WILL-AM 580 Tornado Safety with Ed Kieser is presented with the cooperation of the UI Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
Contact:
Mary Barrineau
Public Information Coordinator
WILL AM-FM-TV
(217) 333-1070