It would seem that Fruitport has become a place that's not too awful shy about grabbing the bull by the horns and finding ways for young people to get some real life experience in a work environment while they continue their education and wonder what it's like in the "real world". Of course, when the publisher has a wife who teaches at Fruitport and her friends have no issue in working to help network, that doesn't hurt much either. We found Kolton Woods as he commented on a pandemic spurred graduation drive thru video we did, and over close to the last two years, he's been right here dealing out the weather Monday-Friday while going to Valparaiso to get his degree, and our next Trojan has come up to the plate to give it a try as well.
Meet Olivia Ward. She's the Senior Class President at Fruitport this year and after discussing her desire to continue her life long passion with her teacher Dr. Elizabeth Grimm, the Dr. said that she needed to meet a "celebrity" friend of hers. Elizabeth oversold it a little. It was a quick message and a meeting with Olivia and her parents to kind of discuss the vibe and purpose of how and why we work. Sharing some thoughts of how our work can be applied to real life in the form of experience, portfolio building and the ability to maybe make a few mistakes early that are not so costly in the long run and in all honesty, she's helping fill an internal need here at the Muskegon Channel too! Being able to teach this kind of work. Being able to remember back to when it was all new to us. Being able to share unique perceptions from different age levels, different backgrounds and different interests....VITAL to the health of media and publishing. It also might open a few younger eyes up to something that's not polarized news and never ending argument. We are lucky to be able to provide a platform that works to share more of the "good things" and what's going right instead of what's going wrong. Are we swimming upstream in that endeavor? Yes, but...our core values and convictions stay true. Our mission is that "We Have a New Story to Tell" and that's not stopping.
You'll hear that Olivia got a taste for the dramatic early on. She began working with the Muskegon Civic Theater with Saturday morning classes at about the age of 5. She has remained with the Civic Theater over the years and tried her hand at a few other local productions as well. As she enters her final year of high school and on to college, she's balancing an interest in the arts along with media and working to learn all she can with both. Olivia has a super cool first story picked out and she'll share that with you too. Take a listen as we welcome the bold and determined Olivia Ward to the Muskegon Channel.
So, stay tuned to learn about the Penguin Project coming up soon with No More Sidelines and the Muskegon Civic Theater! We're thrilled to welcome Olivia and we hope moreover that we can help her along a little. Before the camera rolled today, we talked about the fact that we're not high pressure. This is very much a self starter job and we'll be there for her to learn and grow, not push her to grow up to fast or become over run with "work" when being young...it only happens once.
