Maryland Summer of Space

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MPT’s Digital Studios partnered with the local NASA Goddard campus to create four digital shorts about Maryland’s contributions to space research, as part of the PBS Summer of Space programming, MPT held a public screening at the Old Greenbelt Theatre. The station’s digital team worked at Goddard’s social media staff to orchestrate cross-posting; NASA promoted the series to their 1.2 million on Facebook fans, and 543 thousand on Twitter contacts, resulting in 13,000 Facebook video plays.

Special Needs Resource Library

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The Vegas PBS Special Needs Resource Library is a free-loan educational media library for Nevada citizens with special needs. Hearing- and visually-impaired residents can check out media with closed captions or descriptive voice-overs. Vegas PBS offers structured play groups for children with special needs ages two to four and their caregivers, conducted in an accessible children’s area within the library. The station provides educational games and activities that parents, teachers and other professionals find vital for teaching children with unique learning challenges.

Storytime in the Commons

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Storytime in the Commons is Nine Network’s successful response to PBS’s national commitment to kindergarten readiness and the literacy needs expressed by the local community. The community educational experience has seen tremendous growth in diversity of attendees and funders. Activities at Storytime include reading stories (including one story in Spanish), photo ops with PBS KIDS® characters and the Delta Dental Tooth Fairy and Tooth Wizard, games that help children grow, like building blocks, visits from the St. Louis Fire Department, Republic Services recycling, and the St. Louis Children’s Hospital Healthy Kids Corner.

Eva Kor and students at a screening of "Eva: A-7063" Sept. 17

The Eva Project

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The Eva project started off as “Eva: A-7063,” a documentary by WFYI Public Media and Ted Green Films about Holocaust survivor turned global peace advocate, Eva Mozes Kor. Through extensive, community-based work and engagement, it expanded into the Eva Outreach and Education Program, which includes the Eva Educational Toolkit and the Eva Virtual Reality Traveling Exhibit, which have had national and international exposure.

Nathan Blaesing of Iowa City

Voices of Veterans

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IowaWatch.org sought out military veterans in August through November 2017 with two simple questions: What should Iowans know about being a veteran, and what could Iowans do to show their support other than simply saying they do it? We answered these questions by 1) going to veterans at places where their service is noted publicly, 2) producing two separate radio reports distributed statewide on a network of 19 stations, 3) producing written stories distributed statewide to Iowa newspapers for republication, 4) hosting a live storytelling event where five selected veterans told about something significant in their lives and 5) recruiting partners to help spread these stories.

Podcast Party

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Podcast Party is a live event that brings together several of our station’s podcasts. For one evening, our listeners can see their favorite podcast hosts and get a new perspective of some of their favorite stories. Over the course of two hours, the event is a multi-act showcase of our podcasts in new, creative, whimsical and thought-provoking interpretations. This includes a live musical performance, a short exercise break and a puppet show version of an episode of Curious Nashville.

Saturday Morning Tunes

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Many parents want to do things with their kids, not just for their kids — to explore shared interests like hiking or, in this case, live music. Saturday Morning Tunes is a series of live concerts, mini-festivals, and other events from WTMD which appeal to kids and parents alike. Held in and around Baltimore each month, they’re broadcast live on air and streamed on Facebook Live, and have brought together thousands of adults and children.

CapRadio Presents: Tiny Desk Sacramento

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Spurred by the voice of a community member, Capital Public Radio created the region’s first Tiny Desk concert, showcasing multiple local entrants who entered this year’s national contest and highlighting numerous others with promotional and follow-up blog content at capradio.org.

Participating in a Capital Public Radio Story Circle in August 2017

Place And Privilege Story Circles

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As part of Capital Public Radio’s multi-platform documentary, “The View From Here: Place And Privilege,” there were Story Circles that brought wildly diverse residents face-to-face to talk about Sacramento’s housing affordability crisis. The experience was so successful that CapRadio secured funding to train 20 community partners in the Story Circle methodology, host additional events, and produce a downloadable guide for newsrooms, community organizations, and others who want to discuss housing, belonging, and community well-being.

Local Governance 101

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In the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville last August, many citizens asked us to hold educational programs that would inform citizens how local government works and how it might be structured differently in the future. Charlottesville Tomorrow and the League of Women Voters organized two panel discussions in February to start this conversation.

Public Works? … A Level Foundation

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Our in-depth engagement and reporting project, “Public Works? A Level Foundation” is a strong example of local public media at its most service-oriented, bringing together community sponsors and partners, public participation and a station-wide multimedia and multi-platform effort. Over six months we took a topic of rising national importance, affordable housing, eviction and gentrification, and localized it for our community by pulling back the curtain on the reputation of the “affordable Midwest.”

Public Radio on Tap: Water Quality

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Iowa Public Radio began our Public Radio on Tap series in October 2017 to bring people together over a beer and facilitate honest conversation about tough topics. Water quality is a contentious issue in the state, increasingly so as urban populations grow and rural populations decrease.

A KUER reporter helps out at a mobile sound booth at a local children’s festival.

KUER Sound Booth

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The KUER Sound Booth brings radio production to the community and introduces and excites local people about listening to and recording their own audio. The mobile sound booth structure, complete with audio recording equipment, travels to various community and station events. Kids and adults are invited to record a personal story or news segment, which is then emailed to them and used in station promotional material and fund drives.

Live Radio Theater for a Rural Community

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For the past three years, KZMU has used open auditions to cast an original musical play in our small community (population 5,000). We rehearsed for six weeks and performed in front of live audiences at a local venue and aired the play on the radio. The first two seasons were aired in episodes, and the last as an entire piece. Our actors/singers/Foley technicians/musicians/engineers have ranged in age from 6 to 70, and our audiences have grown each year as more people are engaged in this locally created audio theatre.

Richland Source's community baby shower gave families an opportunity to get health information from local organizations including Richland Pregnancy Services

Richland Source Community Baby Shower

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Richland Source hosted a community baby shower as a way for the local community to engage with solutions journalism work about infant mortality. Approximately 20 community organizations and 500 attendees came together to learn about resources and educational materials available to help with having a safe and healthy pregnancy and raising a healthy and happy baby.

Side Effects Reporting: Opioids and Minorities in Indiana

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Side Effects is a public health journalism initiative of WFYI Public Media in Indianapolis, in partnership with the Indiana Minority Health Coalition, to explore the issue of the opioid epidemic being presented as a “white” problem and its implications, like disparities in access to treatment, criminal sentencing, and even the language used to describe the addicted. The project includes a documentary, a panel discussion, and more.

Sights & Sounds of East Oakland

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KALW’s Sights & Sounds of East Oakland is a multi-pronged project that aims to shine a light on creators in a community often mis- or underrepresented in media. Through live community events featuring dance, music, storytelling and visual art, as well as multimedia presentations based on reporting from KALW’s newsmagazine Crosscurrents and community partners like Oakland Voices and East Oakland Youth Development Center, we celebrate grassroots creativity and build new connections within and beyond these communities. The project also encompasses community media training with youth and adults through our partners, and utilizes our Hearken-powered, crowd-sourced journalism project Hey Area to draw coverage and story ideas from East Oakland residents.

WVIA’s PBS Kids in the Classroom

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PBS Kids in the Classroom’s Heads Start Program is a program designed to provide Health and Wellness learning for PreK-2 grade students by leveraging the most well respected children’s educational programming on the air today and bringing it DIRECTLY to every student.

Heart 2 Heart Breakfast Series

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The Heart 2 Heart Breakfast series linked event participants who share a passion for service to the people of the community to each other, support, services, resources and the station. The Heart 2 Heart Breakfast series is now a year-old initiative designed to promote, showcase, and connect non-profits and grassroots organizations doing good work in the Triangle. 

Mohammed Bakr

KUOW’s “Ask A…” Project

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KUOW’s “Ask A…” project is a community engagement initiative to promote empathy and understanding with groups that have been “othered” by media or politics. It features person-to-person conversation events where a group of “askers” have consecutive eight-minute conversations with a group of “answerers,” followed by a group discussion and a shared meal. Events have included Muslims, Trump supporters, transgender people, journalists, foster parents, immigrants, gun owners, and Special Olympics athletes.