McCann Boys and Girls club start a news program.
Laughter is a huge part of the fun at BGC Weekly, a new program offered at the Boys and Girls Club. The program is in the early stages, but plans on being a variety news show made by the kids and run by the kids, with a little help from creator Cory Tibbits.
Michelle Nash
Children at the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa will soon be
starting up their own weekly news show.
BGC Weekly will be a variety news show that will have the
kids at the Fred C. McCann Clubhouse in Vanier
involved in producing, hosting and filming the show. They will be interviewing
people about their jobs, communities, pastimes and more.
Cory Tibbits, who does animation work for Hollywood
film studios, volunteers at the clubhouse and helped create the project.
“When I explained I wanted to do a variety news program, all
the kids freaked out and started to tell me what they thought should be in the
show,” Tibbits said.
The project grew out of a short film project Tibbits had
begun with some of the children at the clubhouse.
“It was too large of a group and no one was interested in
working behind the scenes, everybody just wanted to act, so I decided it was time
for a change,” Tibbits said.
When Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa manager Adam Joiner heard
about the new project, he was quickly got caught up in the excitement.
“I knew Cory wanted to change the program and my role has
always been to let the people who are good at what they do, do their thing,”
Joiner said.
The new project is just getting started, but already the
amount of kids showing up has doubled. “I see this becoming a big foundational
program for the club and I see it really bringing in more kids,” Tibbits said.
Kids will be interviewing actors, musicians, artists or any
other members of the community they find interesting. It will offer the club
members a chance to see people at work in different jobs and activities.
“The kids are really going to be the ones who decide who to
interview,” Joiner explains. “And I think this program will introduce them to
all sorts of people and careers which will in turn encourage them to strive for
great things in life.”
One of the first interview subjects is going to be a local puppet
maker; the type of experience Tibbits thinks might have had an influence on his
life as kid.
“I didn’t even know you could grow up and become that,”
Tibbits said. “Most kids aren’t thinking about being different … . I think this
will give the kids a lot of self esteem,”
Joiner sees this program really taking off, and will
eventually lead to bigger and better opportunities for the kids down the road.
The program will be filmed with a couple of camcorders and
Tibbits said at the moment the project is operating on a shoestring budget.
“We could really use more equipment,” Tibbits said.
Ashley Jane Lopez, 18, works at the Boys and Girls club and
has watched this particular program grow from two children to into the larger crowds
showing up on a regular basis.
“When I was working the desk, no one was going into this
room, now look at all the kids here today,” Lopez said.
Lopez and Fahd Alhatta, also a youth worker at the club,
have witnessed the kids who come grow and become even more excited as the project
progresses.
“This program has made the kids interested and engaged. It
is a wonderful idea Cory came up with and I am happy to get to be apart of it,”
Alhattab said.
Tibbits has helped the children with their interviewing and
so far is very impressed by the level of maturity he is seeing.
“There is this one nine year old girl who blew me away,”
Tibbits recalls. “She was so serious, asking intelligent questions and any
chance she had she threw a follow up question at them.”
As the kids continue to come out and get behind – and in
front of – the camera, they’ll continue to formulate funny, intelligent and strong
questions giving BGC weekly the energy to become a great new program for kids
of all ages.