After examining their own experiences and ability to impact who they become, the Jr. Viewfinder turned to examining their own heroes personal stories. We started by selecting a hero. The heroes ranged from Harriet Tubman to Ruby Bridges to Oprah to Eminem. As a warm up activity, we did blind contour drawings of our heroes and wrote some words that embodied their story and spirit. Then, we set about doing some research. Using the same personal growth storyboard handout, the youth wrote out the story of their hero and how their choices led to them making a huge difference in the world. Filling out the storyboard handout was actually more successful this time than it had been when they were filling it out about themselves.

After they finished the storyboard, they started their videos. We used Adobe Spark, which is a free program that provides templates for short videos. Our storyboard handout aligned really well with one of their templates, so the youth just had to type in what they had on their storyboard and find some photos to accompany the text. Some of them also recorded voiceover, which is a feature of Adobe Spark. Overall, these videos went really well. We did have lower attendance than usual and that helped in terms of being able to provide one-on-one help to the youth with their videos. They seemed to enjoy making the videos and were definitely proud of them, once they were finished. Below are two examples!