2021 Indy Give! Launch

 

Dear Friend and Supporter,

Let me thank you in advance for reading this personal statement.

For some time, I’ve wanted to express to you what the Youth Documentary Academy (YDA) has meant to me personally this last decade. YDA has become the work of my professional life and work that makes me so proud.

When we started our program in 2013, we most certainly were NOT thinking about producing a television series for PBS. We were thinking about leveling the playing field in the middle of the country for elite film arts academies that existed primarily in California and New York. Most of those programs were reserved for wealthy families who wanted their kids to have enrichment opportunities.

In addition, many in my community were feeling frustrated with the discourse in the field of documentary filmmaking about equity, representation and inclusion. There has been a lot of talk, some of it productive, about who gets to tell their stories in the U.S. To me, the rubber of equity and inclusion hits the road when we go beyond talking and start proactively putting cameras in the hands of diverse young people and training them professionally to tell their own stories.

This is exactly what we’ve done: in less than ten years, we’ve changed the conversation with a model that invites teens into the role of storyteller with courage and audacity. YDA has pioneered youth-driven documentary storytelling that honors under-represented voices and provides teens with the tools, competencies and support to produce and distribute high caliber films. Since 2013, YDA’s 100 films have become a go-to for educators, advocates and now, public tv programmers across the country.

Speaking of TV: In 2019, we produced our first iteration of a television series that Rocky Mountain PBS picked up and began broadcasting statewide in Colorado. OUR TIME is a fresh and unvarnished documentary series that exclusively features the films of our students in collaboration with our filmmaking faculty. Just in the last months, American Public Television (APT) has agreed to acquire our series and begin distributing it to over 300 PBS stations nationwide beginning in 2022. This is great news for young people. For families. And for all of us who care about amplifying the voices of those often shunted to the margins of the media.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED FROM YDA THIS PAST DECADE? 

When I was a teenager, Story (with a capital S) was a concept that existed far from my own life experiences and hometown. It was in Hollywood. It was in New York City. Somewhere out there; not in my own backyard.

Things have changed since then. Now, when young people see that they, themselves, are an important access point to story — that their own lived experiences provide material that they can shape and craft into stories that they own — magic begins to happen.

While asking friends, family and loved ones for financial contributions is not always easy, there is something quite different about YDA. It makes me very proud to share this opportunity with you. Every year at this time, YDA participates in a crowd-sourcing campaign called Give! which raises money for 100 non-profit organizations in Southern Colorado.

I would like to invite you to invest in YDA with us: to make a contribution in service of young people in this country and their capacity to locate and amplify their voices through storytelling and filmmaking.

Please click on the Give! logo above or go to www.indygive.com/yda.

And here’s a special offer: the first ten contributors to our Give! campaign this year who give $100 or more will receive a free download of OUR TIME – Season 1. You can own your own copy of all six episodes, the very program that will be airing nationally on public tv next year.  

Our organization runs LEAN. We have almost no overhead and we deploy nearly all our resources to teaching, filmmaking — and now making those films available to a national audience.

We have two donors from Colorado — Mona Adelgren and the Bloom Foundation — who have given a five thousand dollar matching grant to our Give! Campaign this year.  We want to raise (and double!) this matching grant.

Will you consider contributing to this enterprise? And for those of you who have supported YDA in the past, will you consider another gift? Any amount will send a strong signal to both our youth and our faculty that this work matters. This work matters. 

Thank you so much for your ongoing interest and support. And I look forward to hearing from many of you and continuing this conversation in the weeks and months ahead.

Very warmly,

Tom Shepard
Founding Director
Youth Documentary Academy