Washington students make video for nursing homes

A group of students and volunteers from Washington produced a 20-minute video about farm life and gave copies of it to nursing homes in the city. In October, the Washington Parent-Teacher Organization received a grant of $250 from a youth service organization called ?generationOn? to do a student service project. The service project was done in conjunction with generationOn?s ?Make Your Mark Week,? which was Oct. 16-22.

Alicia Vittetoe is the president of the Washington Parent-Teacher Organization. When she learned of the grant last month she approached Mike Roder, who teaches video production courses at the high school. The $250 grant was used to purchase a pocket-sized video camera, a surround sound speaker system and DVDs for the high school media department. She asked Roder if any of his students would be interested in filming a video as a service project. Roder suggested senior Alex Thode, who had taken classes from Roder and who, along with senior Brock Kimball, had produced a promotional video for the Washington Chamber of Commerce.

Vittetoe contacted Thode and told him the video would be about farming and that it would be shown in nursing homes. Thode told her it was something he would like to do. Thode did most of the filming in October and then edited it before turning in the final product.

Thode asked his classmates if he could film on their farms. He went to the farm of Dave and Karolyn Skubal and to the farm of Tim and Heather Marek. Thode filmed the farm implements in operation. He filmed fellow high school students Brad and Dana Skubal as they worked around the farm.

The Mareks raise pigs, so Thode filmed them caring for the pigs. Thode filmed Lexi, Makenzi and Macy Marek performing their choirs. The Marek girls explained their choirs as they did them so Thode did not have to do a voice-over during the editing process.

Nathan and Rachel Fishback have a farm in the county, and Rachel saw on the school district?s blog that it was looking for farmers to be featured in the film about farming. Rachel thought it would be fun to be part of the project so she contacted Roder for instructions.

Rachel used her own camera to film her farm and also took still photographs of it.

?I explained how things worked on the farm,? she said. ?I did a lot of voice-overs and a lot of clips of the equipment running. My daughter videotaped me for one of the clips.?

Thode received Rachel?s video and incorporated her film and still shots into the final video. Even though he has filmed and edited several videos now, Thode said that movie-making is just an extracurricular activity for him and not a career.

?It?s more of a hobby for me,? Thode said. ?It?s something I like to do on the side.?

The students who helped with the project presented the video at McCreedy Home about two weeks ago. Vittetoe took the video around to the other nursing homes in town.

?I think the residents were happy about how it turned out,? she said. ?The kids did a great job. Alex is a self-starter. I told him, ?I?m going to leave it to you. You use your own judgment.??

Vittetoe said that the parent-teacher group has received grants for projects before but nothing related to producing a video.

?The Make Your Mark Grant had five categories you could submit under, and one was under environment, which is what we chose,? she said. ?We chose the farming environment. We wanted to bring that into the nursing homes because a lot of those residents cannot go out.?

Vittetoe said she hoped the video brought back memories to the residents and that it showed them how farming has changed over the years.

?We hoped it would give them something to reminisce about,? she said. ?For the dementia patients, if you can just engage them for 10 minutes in something, that is beneficial. If you?re a farmer, it?s something you can relate to.?

The activity coordinator at McCreedy Home, Ken Hershberger, said that about 15 residents watched the video.

?It brought back a lot of memories for them about how they used to farm,? he said. ?They got to see the new machinery and the computers. They also saw the new regulations from the DNR about how to apply fertilizer in the fall. A lot of the people here have grown up on farms or in a rural setting.?

Hershberger said he appreciates the time young people spend at the home. He said students have visited McCreedy Home in the past as part of Orange and Black Give Back Day, and students from Lincoln called the ?Sunrise Singers? have performed at the home during Christmas time.