In a final push to close out the second year of our MAM program, students completed a film unit focused on Commercial Pitches.

Thank you to our partners at Deutsch LA and Vice Media for sponsoring such a successful and fun student pitch contest, during our first ever, New Flight Awards. The event took place over Zoom and invited 13 our students, in grades 6-12, to present their ideas to Advertising industry professionals. The same volunteers offered live feedback and ultimately, selected three grand prize winners. It was so impressive to see our students rise to the occasion and field questions from a Zoom room full of strangers!

Some students used pitch decks, others shared unique animations they made themselves. Karla Vasquez, a student from Manual Arts (pictured below), was selected as the Grand Prize winner after sharing the animation she made as her Commercial Pitch.

Our partner, Shon Davis, singlehandedly helped recruit industry professionals to serve as guest speakers during our last unit , Commercial Pitches, and subsequently asked many of them to serve as judges during the New Flight Awards. In addition to recruiting said audience for the competition, Shon was able to fundraise the three grand prizes in addition to a $50.00 prize for all student participants.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this effort to create a meaningful career connection pipeline, a driving tenant of our program. MAM exists to bring high quality arts education to South LA students and to fill this gap between art experiences in schools and careers on our city. You are looking at the work of future Copywriters, Storyboarders, Marketers and Animators!

Second place finisher, Olivia Pacheco from West Adams High School.