Team Leader: Ashley Hutchins / Grace Gallaspy Funded Date: November 9, 2024 Amount: $2,500 Location: Lafayette, LA
Progress
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Project Description
The National Alliance on Mental Illness recently reported that 1 in 6 children between the ages of 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year in the United States. The American Psychological Association reports that in the 10 years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 40% increase in depressive symptoms, feelings of hopelessness, and suicidal behaviors among American youth.
The first step in ensuring children have the tools they need to seek assistance for their mental health is setting a standard of open and transparent communication about mental health.
Team Reel Connections is pitching an innovative approach to modeling and facilitating mental health conversations and improving community access to resources with our (e)motion picture family movie event. With this project, we will use a popular family film to engage participants in a dialogue about emotions and provide them the tools needed to replicate these conversations at home. We will treat all our attendees to the red carpet experience to create an atmosphere of fun and excitement.
We will follow the movie screening with brief, facilitated discussion groups led by mental health professionals to model discussion techniques for families to continue sharing and communicating about mental health topics at home. At the conclusion of the event all attendees will get their “VIP swag bag” of local mental health resources and materials designed to help foster healthy communication patterns for families. We believe engaging experiences like (e)motion picture events can serve Acadiana as a vital resource in battling the mental health crisis currently impacting all communities in the US and can improve social determinants of health in our region.
We look forward to collaborating with community partners, qualified mental health professionals and the families in Acadiana to shine a spotlight on mental health.
A Silent Disco Prom will be a night for our autism and special education needs population to feel accepted, understood, and celebrated. Sensory Grooves will be an evening devoted entirely to helping individuals 14-18 years of age enjoy a traditional prom experience in an inclusive environment that feels safe and friendly.
Sensory Grooves participants will feel like prom royalty as they will control their experience, making it as unique as each of them. Participants will receive wireless headphones customized at a constant volume level featuring three different audio channels. These three channels allow participants to volley back and forth between three song choices from three DJs, all by clicking a button on their headphones. This control factor helps each participant feel more included and immerses them in a socially positive group experience.
Suppose participants sense they need a break from all the fun of dancing. In that case, they can still listen and observe or remove the headphones and have a conversation, never missing a moment of the grand experience of their evening. Having choices extends a safety factor, minimizing sensory overload and providing a successful and memorable evening.
Sensory Grooves participants will experience the feeling of being included and allowing each to celebrate and have fun together to the beat of their own headphones!
Project Details
Team Leader: Kelly Landry Funded Date: November 11, 2023 Amount: $3,500 Location: Lafayette, LA
Dear Groovy Community, On the magical evening of April 27, 2024, 24 HCP and Sensory Grooves opened the doors of Wonderland Performing Arts in true red-carpet fashion celebrating our sensory and neurodivergent 8th-12th graders in and around the Acadiana area. The night...
Dear Groovy Community, Since you last heard from us in December, Team Sensory Grooves has been “strutting our stuff” in preparation for the grooviest night coming in Acadiana - Sensory Grooves: Silent Disco Prom! We look forward to celebrating our sensory and...
Dear Groovy Community, Thank you are two of the most simplistic words that are written in this moment filled with such sincere gratitude. Team Sensory Grooves is beyond grateful to you for opening doors and entrusting us to showcase the need for acceptance and...
Inclusive Prom will offer a free opportunity for high schoolers in the Acadiana region to meet students from other schools and build community. Many teenagers in our area, including those who are LGBTQ+, will not be able to go to their proms as themselves or with the date of their choice. Inclusive Prom offers an opportunity for high schoolers who would benefit from an alternate prom experience to come together to celebrate their authentic selves and each other. This community event will benefit our community by creating a safe space for LGBTQ+ and other marginalized youth where they can be accepted as themselves, where they can see there are people in the community that support them, and where teenagers from different schools can meet, furthering a sense of community.
Inclusive Prom will be a free 3 hour event hosted at a local venue in Lafayette, open to all high school students in the Acadiana region. Music, dancing, and snacks will be offered. There will be a photo station offering free selfie opportunities and paid-for photo packages. By offering a safe and inclusive space for youth in the community to feel accepted as themselves, we hope to build up and support young people who may not have other sources of support.
The challenges facing youth today are unprecedented. There has been a dramatic increase in mental health concerns for teenagers. This is even more true in the LGBTQ+ community. According to the Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. LGBTQ youth who live in a community that is accepting of LGBTQ people reported significantly lower rates of attempting suicide than those who do not. By hosting this community event, we can hopefully help to reduce suicide rates of LGBTQ+ youth in our community by demonstrating a safe place of acceptance and support.
Project Details
Team Leader: Acadiana Queer Collective, LLC – Wendy Dorfman, Brandi Ortiz, Kelly Noyes, Monet David, Peyton Michelle, Jess Allain Funded Date: November 5, 2022 Amount: $4,000 Location: Lafayette, LA
Dear Community, WE DID IT!!!! On Saturday, March 11, Team Inclusive Prom held its very first Inclusive Prom for high school students across Acadiana. It was a glorious evening of fashion, dancing, smiles, and laughter from the students and the adult chaperones alike....
Dear Community, Inclusive Prom is only 4 DAYS AWAY. We have been meeting regularly, voting on this and that, & currently trying to tie up any loose ends. We have received tremendous support from local community groups: The Family Tree/Jacob Crouch Suicide...
Dear Community, Since receiving the $4,000 from the 24 Hour Citizens Project we have hit the ground running! Inclusive Prom will be taking place on Saturday, March 11th from 7:00-10:00pm. Team Inclusive Prom was initially made up of member of Acadiana Queer Collective...
Our team is creating a traveling, interactive theatre workshop that provides a performing arts outlet for youth in our community. This workshop will be 3 hours long, and includes a solid curriculum covering an introduction to theatre, along with a Mad-Lib style original play that explores important topics like bullying, self-esteem, and team-work! Our team is equipped with trained professionals to execute this project and we can’t wait to get started!
This project is two-fold. For the children: Theatre activities provide an interactive, creative & immersive gateway for kids to express themselves & learn about the world around them. Theatre artists make observations and use life experiences to perform their realities, hopes, dreams, and ideas. Being part of a theatre activity can give a child the tools to be collaborative and creatively problem solve within a group. This project would be an attempt to expose youth to these skills in a fun and effective way!
For the professional theatre artists living in this community: Too often, theatre artists work for free, especially in Acadiana. This leads them to leaving our area to seek paid work in their field. One of my goals, as a citizen of Lafayette, is to create job opportunities for our local performing arts talent. This is one small project, that if executed with care, can grow into a program that impacts children and supplies theatre professionals with jobs in future years. Performing arts programming is often the first line item removed from school budgets. This negatively impacts both the children and theatre professionals in our area. This project will bridge the gap in performing arts offerings in our community by being accessible due to its mobility. With this project, teaching artists will travel to students who will benefit greatly from this experience.
Our team wants to share our knowledge of why theatre is important, what we can learn from theatre, character development, relationships, and storytelling with children in our community. Our hope is to introduce these concepts to children to give them a creative writing and performance outlet. First, the kids will be led through improv exercises that build self-confidence. Then they will become part of creating a story, giving them ownership and a sense of pride in their work. Volunteers from the group of children will be allowed to become our actors for the play we create together! They’ll dress up in costumes and use special props to aid them in acting the story out while the story is narrated by the instructors. Those not performing the piece will be part of our interactive audience. The instructors will give them cues in the script to listen for, and various things to do (make a sound effect, clap, stomp, etc) when certain things are said by the actors on stage. This demonstrates that all jobs in theatre are important, even being an audience member!
Project Details
Team Leader: Allison Brandon Funded Date: November 6, 2021 Amount: $3,600 Location: Lafayette, LA
Dear Community, Our second workshop on July 12, 2022, was a success! We partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Acadiana this time! We had about 12 kiddos participate, and we had a blast doing improv exercises, learning...
Dear Community, We held our first workshop in partnership with New Hope Community Development Center on April 5 & 6, 2022. The workshop consisted of 2 fun-filled days including a crash course in theatre, improv exercises, team building, creative writing, script...
Dear Community, Our program development has taken off in a big way! Danielle Moroux, recipient of 24 HCP 2017 funding for "Pop Up Kids Theatre" has joined forces with The Mad Thinkers for our creative writing process. Brii Simmons and I are working closely with...
Dear Community, Mad Thinkers are moving and grooving in our process of creating our interactive theatre workshop. We are currently in “scheduling mode,” meaning we are scheduling our writing sessions, and our first workshop with Big Brothers Big Sisters. During 24...
Our project is all about equipping teens with the proper tools and training to become local media experts. Teens would first be taught the proper way to film and utilize equipment. Newly acquired skills will be used to film news segments and short documentaries focusing on the teen experience in Lafayette.
The goal of our project is to create something that Lafayette teens will be proud of. The first phase of the program will be training and discovery. One group of students will be trained by Mark Tassin on the filming and production aspect of media. He will offer training on camera functions, lighting, video editing and scriptwriting. The second set of training will be for students who choose to be in front of the camera. This will include creative writing, Digital Storytelling (partnering with Acadiana Open Channel) and the creation of storyboards. We anticipate that students will struggle to articulate their experience as a result of not having the opportunity to express it before. We hope to explore creative ways to help them find their voice.
Students will need to commit to two areas that they will become experts in before we begin preproduction of the Teen Tales Documentary. Students will refine their skills of media production by shooting and editing biweekly news clips for the Clearport Learning Center. This will allow them to refine skills in preparation for the Documentary.
The Clearport Learning Center will host a screening of the Teen Tales Documentary that will be open to students and community members.
Project Details
Team Leader: Raquel Henry Funded Date: November 9, 2019 Funding Amount: $3,000 Location: Lafayette, LA
Dear Community, Our project is still moving along, in its new post-COVID form. We have transitioned to having the students tell their stories in shorter formats. As of now, they are using iPhones to conduct man-on-the-street-style interviews, which they then edit into...
Dear Community, Not much has changed since the last time we checked in. In our last update we shared our plan to restart classes in the next school year. The goal is to begin the first week of school. Our focus for this school year was to identify a new group of...
Dear Community, Our team’s last update ended with us looking optimistically to the upcoming school year. Unfortunately, we were not able to resume classes due to the many changes with students, schools, and at The Clearport. The lives of our initial group of students...
Dear Community, Let’s start with the good stuff! We were able to begin Lighting and Camera classes before quarantine. This was by far the student’s favorite class! I think it is because they created amazing selfies. In this class, students learned how to use lighting...
Dear Community, Kids N Media is currently in the second month of classes! In January the topic was Introduction to Production. Based on the large number of students interested in December we decided to have the first class of the year in the Recreation area of the...
Dear Community, There is no doubt that the 24-Hour Citizen Project was one of our team’s most memorable moments in 2019. Within the last few weeks we have made some progress and are excited to share with you some things we’ve learned. Let’s start with the great news...
