Crystal Stewart, Rachael Teeter, and Emma Winge all participated in making a video about Tucker Mueller’s story for the Memorial Blood Center’s video contest, who were sponsoring the two minute video about the need for blood.  The moving video – according to numerous comments, it brought tears to the viewers! – beat out the other submission who made the final cut: Duluth East, a school twice as big as South Shore.  The video’s were judged based on “likes” and shares via Facebook and YouTube.  The photographers did an outstanding job spreading the word about the video, posting an article requesting votes and linking to the video and verbally requesting classmates, friends and family to “like” the video.  Clearly, their efforts paid off.  The final score was 450 “likes” and shares for South Shore and 178 for Duluth East.  Of course, the video was an effective way to deliver the message that the need for blood is constant.  In fact, one of the elementary students who say the video said “Wow!  This video makes me want to go out and give.”  The power of Tucker’s story has and will continue to reach hundreds of people.

The girls started the video in mid December and worked on it for about 2 months which included meeting in the library with their adviser, Brigid J. Ripley, taking a field trip, countless hours scrubbing audio, arranging pictures that were supplied by Tucker’s mom, Mindy,  searching for just the right music to accompany the story, researching facts about blood donation and manipulating images on Photoshop.

Winning the contest netted the talented photographers and 45 additional people a trip to any Marcus Theater with free pop and popcorn to view their video on the big screen.  The date for the trip is still pending.