By: Joslyn Young, Director & Founder
I know it’s been a LONG time since our last update, and for that I truly apologize. A few highlights of what VFC has been doing in the last year and where we’re going in the future.
1. Throughout the academic year VFC 2009 participants continued to work on the film, Through Our Eyes. A final version is near completion, and we will hopefully have a debut for that final copy sometime late this summer or early in the fall.
![IMG_1364 VFC Spring Editing](https://chestervfc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/img_1364.jpg?w=300&h=225)
Neia, Dwayne, Ayanah, and Jasmine continue editing in the spring of 2010.
2. We had a Swarthmore College debut of the near-final version of the film in May 2010. Although it wasn’t perfect, there were about 10 Swarthmore students and faculty who came to view the film. Afterward, the VFC participants answered some of the audience’s questions about the film and the program.
![IMG_1374 VFC at Swarthmore Debut](https://chestervfc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/img_13741.jpg?w=300&h=225)
VFC at the Swarthmore Debut of Through Our Eyes.
3. Jasmine, Kira, and Dwayne are currently very involved in establishing Team H.Y.P.E., which (remember) stands for H-elping Y-outh P-ositively E-xcel. We’ll do a better update on this in the near future, once things are more concretely established. In case you forgot, Team H.Y.P.E. was started in one of the internships of VFC last summer as a way to engage teens in Chester in positive activities.
They have set up a Team H.Y.P.E. page on Facebook for now, and you should check it out at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-HYPE/137366072947142?v=wall#!/pages/Team-HYPE/137366072947142
On a personal note, I am extremely proud of what these teens are doing right now. They spent 2.5 hours on Monday picking up trash in the heat as a way to get started doing something positive in the city. Plus, they continue to look for other community service opportunities and ways to develop a teen lounge in Chester that would allow teens to have a place to go for safe, positive activities. In light of everything that’s happening in Chester right now (see http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20100624_Chester_state_of_emergency_extended_amid_controversy.html), the positive work that these young people are doing shows great promise for the future.
4. I am in the process of developing an afterschool portion of VFC, which will hopefully launch in September or October of this year and be established as a living, breathing, functioning collaboration between local college students and the teen producers in Chester.
5.More pictures and updates will come, and hopefully I’ll finally be able to figure out how to get some video online as well. Stay tuned.