Kids’ Videos Hail Newhallville Heroes

The growing inspiring story of how an infamous drug dealing spot has risen from the ashes to become an oasis for plant life and cultural life in Newhallville hit the silver screen, courtesy of neighborhood kids who are honing video chops.

The short video, titled ​“From Mudhole To Learning Corridor,” and several others were centerpieces of ​“Kids TV Family Fun Film Festival,” an annual event that drew nearly a 100 kids and their families to the Lincoln-Bassett School Monday night.

The movie-viewing was surrounded by a kids’ back-to-school fashion show, prize drawings, cotton candy and fried dough, backpack and school supply giveaways, and a general cheering on of the achievements and promise of Newhallville.

The evening also marked the 30th year that Kim Harris, operator of the Harris and Tucker Preschool, chair of the Newhallville Community Management Team, and creator of last summer’s One City initiative, has culminated her school’s summer TV production-themed camp with a community-focused premier of the kids’ video projects.

The camp had 32 kids this year, with 25 from Newhallville, from ages 7 to 14. They spent six weeks choosing subjects, researching, scripting, writing interview questions, doing the interviews, and all the production.

Kids like Chase Johnson and Amina Ahmed worked on the movies. Besides the transformation of the ​“Mudhole,” subjects included local barber Gary Gates and his passionate support of local basketball teams; Jeanette Sykes and her Perfect Blend,” a program for young women to mentor their younger contemporaries; and a small feature about the greenspace being championed by Nina Fawcett at the corner of Huntington and Shephard.

As she waited in the thronged auditorium of the school for the films to be set up, Amina said she especially had liked working on ​“From Mudhole to Learning Corridor.”

This year Harris’s program scored $10,000 from the federal Byrne Grant, a $1 million-dollar three-year federal neighborhood empowering grant for Newhallville.

That enabled the kids and their instructors to take their movies ​“to the next level” technically, Harris said.

I noticed, especially in the ​“Mudhole” video, several 360-degree and other camera moves. It was clear the kids were trying to get as much visual information into the frame as possible, as their interviewees offered answers in words.

I particularly enjoyed how the films actually showed the filming. We saw the young interviewer asking Gary Gates his biggest wish for Newhallville. We also saw the two kids holding the boom microphones, and the whole team learning teamwork together, as part of the story.

Gates’ answer to his interviewer: ​“My greatest wish for Newhallville is that it be safe.”

You could tell from how the kids conducted their interviews and follow-up questions that they were, as Amina had suggested, particularly interested in the story of how their parents’ generations’ efforts, inlcuding by Doreen Abubakar, to turn a dangerous open-air drug market into a beloved community park.

They had taken the vacant and abused space at Shelton near Hazel at the access to the Farmington Canal, and enhanced it with a butterfly garden, brought in peripatetic activities like green markets and a petting zoo. Community partners, such as Devil’s Gear Bike Shop and the Bradley Bicycle Coop, brought in bike rental and bike repair, a communication ​“tower,” and many other amenities.

The grant also enabled the school supply donations, the cotton candy and fried dough and other treats by the pound, that turned the movie premiere night Monday into a Newhallville version of a community gala.

During the event, Harris called up Mayor Toni Harp to make the first ceremonial drawing from the ​“magical bucket” that started off the drawings for the free gift cards. She had local Alder Delphyne Clyburn and State Rep. Robyn Porter walk the aisles showing off their very own back-to-school fashions.