Video Wins Award, Shows How The Family Center Turned Mother’s Life Around
The 3-minute video captured the story of how the Somerville nonprofit helped a troubled mother right her life and reunite with her children.
When Juliet lost custody of her children due to drug addiction, The Family Center helped her turn her life around—and filmmaker Nick Kaufman captured the story in just three minutes of video.
Recently, the video “The Family Center” was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 501c3: Capturing Change on Camera contest. Sponsored by Tufts University’s Child & Family WebGuide project, the competitions aim is to “use the power of visual media to highlight and share the important, under-recognized work of children, youth, and family non-profits in our communities….”
The Family Center provides therapy, parenting classes and support services to low-income families in Somerville and Greater Boston, and the video zooms in to show just what those words can mean to one mother and her children.
“She’s more nicer and she take care of us more,” said Juliet’s young son to the camera.
Nick Kaufman, founder of NKP Media of Newtonville, shot the video at The Family Center in Union Square as well as at Somerville parks including Conway Playground.
Watch the video here.
Joe Beckmann
12:31 pm on Monday, February 21, 2011
It's wonderful that the Family Center had a video win a prize, but it's a real story that the top prise went to the George Mark Children's House, in SAN LEANDRO, CALIFORNIA; Chess In the Schools, in NEW YORK, NEW YORK; the Hatlin Center for the Blind, in OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA; and Operation Breaking Stereotypes, in ORONO, MAINE. It's an excellent video, and certainly worthy of a prize - as are the others on that web page. Yet one does wonder - I almost said "begin to wonder," and then realized that I'd begun wondering when I first moved to Somerville - what community Tufts thinks itself residing in! Such contests are an excellent way to promote more and better web literacy for nonprofits, but, framed as national contests, they have minimal impact here, where they also don't pay taxes. Once again, and now with a new President who probably will spend most of his time in Boston, let us not forget that Tufts pays ten percent of what Harvard pays in PiLoT payments to its host city! And, in that context, I hope the movie got a substantial financial prize.