Two years ago,  Cal Whitworth, a 2018 Stratford graduate, came up to me wondering if I wanted some community service hours. I desperately needed a few hours, so I said yes. What I didn’t know then is that I had just gotten myself into one of the best experiences I’ve ever been a part of.  

For the past two summers,  I have had the pleasure of working with a group of amazing kids who have family members with breast cancer at Kids in Pink. The camp is one of United in Pink’s many programs and is a day camp for a week in June. 

The job Cal got me into was the videographer for the camp, where Cal and I got to go around filming the campers playing games, dancing, singing, and just having a great time. So for that week,  Cal and I would show up every morning with cameras in hand ready to get videos of all the kids.

We went around, played games with kids, sang songs, and just made it so they had the best week of their summer and made sure to capture it on camera so the campers could watch it the next morning.

The filming and playing with the campers was the fun part, but then once that was all over Cal and I had to get to work editing. We tried to make the videos as cool as possible for the kids, adding transitions, green-screen effects, and adding music in the background. 

Cal was a perfectionist, which has slowly rubbed off on me. We would not stop editing until the video was perfect. Every transition on a beat, every blur to a tee, and every song had to be perfect. We would stay up till 4 in the morning to make sure everything was just right for the kids, and once it was all done the videos were amazing. 

The next morning we got up at 7,  rushed to Mabel White Church to plug in the video, and then we got to see the best part of our job. The smiles on the kids’ faces. Every last one of them was smiling,  pointing out if they saw themselves or a friend, and all I could think about while watching the kids was “God, I need to make this happen again tomorrow”.

It was a busy few days without any sleep or time to slack off, but it is by far the best week of my summer every time it rolls around. It’s a lot of work, but I love doing it,  and I’ll be doing it every summer I can.