Current (https://current.org/project-status/semi-finalist/page/5/)
Cincinnati Public Radio’s Classics for Kids program introduces thousands of children to classical music in a fun way through lesson plans, online games, email newsletters for teachers and parents, partnerships with local music organizations, and events.
Public Media Network (PMN) is a Public, Education, and Government (PEG) media arts organization founded to serve five Michigan towns. Say Something! Youth Voices provides young residents access to training, equipment loans, media production facilities, programming distribution, and vocational instruction in media production to local high schools. PMN also operates WKDS 89.9 FM, a 100-watt FM non-commercial/educational radio station licensed to the Kalamazoo Public Schools.
KUOW’s Curiosity Club is a nerdy supper club exploring the possibility that great food and compelling storytelling can transform a group of diverse strangers into a community. It’s like a bookless book club for public radio nerds.
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.
KMUW’s Engage ICT events are free, monthly panel discussions with local experts that focus on topics that touch Wichita citizens’ daily lives, giving them a chance to directly ask questions and spark civic engagement. Previous topics have included climate change, Medicaid expansion, and education funding.
“Phenology” is a program from KAXE/KBXE featuring local student reporting on natural phenomena and the changing seasons. The “Phenology” team works with 15 different schools around the state and both broadcasts and podcasts kids’ nature reports once a week.
Hive is WFDD’s multi-tiered education program that empowers people to learn, ask questions, think critically, and care about their community through storytelling. Though primarily youth-focused, Hive serves people ages 10 – 65+ through a variety of programs, including a summer student Radio Camp, Radio 101 classes in local schools and colleges, after-school intensives, and pocket edition workshops.
Issues & Ale is Michigan Radio’s ongoing community event series designed to engage people in conversations about important issues facing the region in an informal atmosphere. The public is invited to learn more about a specific topic from a panel of experts and then join in with their questions and comments. Discussions are hosted by Michigan Radio on-air anchors or reporters and are held in brew pubs, sports bars, and taverns across Michigan.
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.
Community in Unity is a solutions journalism project and event series from Alaska Public Media to begin critical and thoughtful dialogue between different people. APM works with community partners to invite people inside homeless shelters, community centers, prisons, and TV studios for recorded conversations about topics that are affecting them. Topics have ranged from race and identity to mental health, immigration, and incarceration.
Sonoma County’s KRCB radio and TV is working with bilingual radio station KBBF in Santa Rosa to ask residents of one neighborhood how their annexation into the city of Santa Rosa may affect their health. The project includes English and Spanish news features and call-in shows about issues like housing, immigration, infrastructure, and parks, as they relate to community wellbeing, and interviews with residents and stakeholders.
To mark the city’s Tricentennial, WWNO New Orleans Public Radio produced TriPod: New Orleans at 300, a radio series and podcast that explores New Orleans’ lost stories and rich history. TriPod seeks out stories that haven’t yet been told, and voices that haven’t been at the table. TriPod is a collaboration with the Historic New Orleans Collection and the University of New Orleans Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies.
Positively Kansas, from KPTS Channel 8, takes viewers to visit the people, places, and things that make Kansas unique and special. The series covers history, the arts, culture, the performing arts, politics, literature, and more woven together by visits to historical sites. Every story is a way to connect different communities across the state, to understand and find meaning in the lives and work of Kansas residents, and to bring the people of Kansas together.
WYSO’s Peer-to-Peer Initiative is an innovative approach to story collecting that has grown organically out of the station’s Community Voices training project. With help from freelance producers, WYSO trains citizens to interview each other. These interviews became radio and web series and community engagement events. When their stories are shared on the radio, the storytellers are validated and the listeners meet people whose experiences are likely different from their own.
“Houston after Harvey” is a multi-platform content initiative from Houston Public Media that examines the impact of the Texas Gulf Coast’s most severe storms through personal stories, intimate video interviews, and in-depth news coverage. Content produced for the project included multiple podcasts, video series, and television and radio specials.
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.
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.
KPBS set out to hear and document the stories of diverse people in five communities within San Diego County and the Imperial Valley and find out how factors like ethnicity and income have shaped their identities. “Where I Come From” is the weekly social media video series that highlights these stories.
The Intersection is a series of hyper-local audio documentaries co-produced by David Boyer and KALW that look at the changing Bay Area of California through physical intersections — street corners — where different histories, motivations, policies, and people meet every day. The show pinpoints the different forces and factors at play there and, over the course of a piece or a season, connects the dots between the past, present, and future.
Twin Cities PBS’s “Out North: MNLGBTQ History” was designed to explore the untold histories of Minnesota’s LGBTQ pioneers, legislators, change makers, and resistors. Starting as one idea from one donor, it grew organically into a comprehensive initiative comprising one two-hour film, more than seven shorts, and more than 45 community events. It combined local community partnerships, screenings, intergenerational conversations, and watch parties — all in response to appetite and demand for engagement around these histories.