Welcome Youth Media Leaders

Each summer, SPNN hires a group of outstanding youth with a history of involvement in our programs to help lead special projects. This year, we are excited to have six awesome youth working with us once again on media production, outreach, and youth programs and workshops. These youth will be helping to lead, produce, mentor, and engage other youth as well as SPNN's general audiences in their respective positions throughout the summer. 

Morgan Kaardal and Destiny Roberts will be peer mentors with our Youth Intern Program, helping to instruct and mentor 12 new interns. The SPNN Youth Intern Program, which is now in its 8th year at SPNN, is designed to serve low-income and marginalized groups of youth, primarily through the City of St. Paul's Youth Job Corps program. In the course of 7 weeks, these interns learn to produce documentaries about issues in their community with the help of partner organizations around St. Paul. As experienced youth producers, Morgan and Destiny will use their skills from both prior YIP participation as well as their experience from their involvement in Set It Up and the Youth Action Committee to teach this year's interns everything they need to know about producing their own documentary and planning a public screening of their work for the community. 

Darartu Tashoma and Ray Lynn Prokasky will be working on the "Sprockets Promo Project," producing promo videos for 7 youth-serving organizations in Saint Paul. Sprockets is a network of Saint Paul organizations serving youth in after school and summer programs, coordinated by the City of Saint Paul.  The purpose of Sprockets is to improve the overall quality, effectiveness, and availailability of after school programs for all youth in Saint Paul.  Sprockets has contracted with SPNN Youth to produce these promo videos, which will be available through the Sprockets website's "Program Locater" to better connect youth to programs that spark their interest.

Andrew Lonnes (not pictured) will be working on visibility, outreach, and distribution for the Youth Programs department as well as assisting with offsite media production workshops. Andrew, who was recently honored as volunteer of the year at SPNN, has a rich history of involvement with the youth programs at SPNN, particularly with the after school program Set It Up. Keep your eyes peeled for Andrew's blog, which will roll out on our site this summer. 

Finally, Sheridan Groves will be working with SPNN's Community Productions department this summer. Sheridan is new to our youth crew at SPNN, but has been an active youth participant in teen programs at Community Television Center in Roseville. Sheridan will be working with the Community Productions department on production work, editing, and marketing.

We are excited to have so many talented young people at SPNN this summer. Watch for updates in the coming months on all their exciting projects!