By Julia Boyle
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

When Barbara Walker decided to take on a new hobby four years ago, she had no idea she would end up an award-winning video journalist.

She and 12 other members of the Charlestown community in Catonsville teamed up with undergraduate students from nearby University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to create autobiographical stories in digital format.

Their Digital Storytelling Project, funded by Retirement Living TV (RLTV), recently won a Bronze Telly Award. The award honors the nation’s best in local, regional, and cable TV programs, as well as video and film productions.

Intergenerational enrichment
Once a week for eight weeks, the participants from Charlestown met with the students in UMBC’s New Media Studio. Each Charlestown resident provided the narrative, photographs, audio recording, and creative direction for their three-minute video(s). The students provided the media technology and expertise, as well as their own creative styles.

“I think that it’s a really worthwhile effort to open up communication lines between generations—let [people] see that we all have something to contribute to each other,” Walker says. “You develop the kind of relationship where you feel free to give and take from each other’s talents and style and interests."

“And I think the young people grasped it as much as we did. They seemed to appreciate being with people who represent their grandparents in a different kind of relationship. Each one was interested in what one another was doing and in each of our stories. It was a nice exchange and important to each age group,” she says.

Importance of storytelling
In addition to intergenerational interaction, the importance of storytelling fueled participants in the project. “It’s terribly important to pass on stories and document them. I think we do not realize [how important it is] until we get older,” Walker says.