Photos by Bryan Tran
by James Nguyen, Staff Writer
Last Thursday, Ashley Le (’15) and Leah Phillips (’16) were celebrated in the library for achieving third place in a Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) StudentCam 2015 Contest, a national video competition.
The contest is hosted by C-SPAN, a cable network that serves in public affair programming. The prompt was to submit a video based on a piece of legislation that affects the community that they are currently living in. Le and Phillips decided to make a video on homeless veterans, based on the Homeless Veterans Act of 2013.
“I thought it was a really interesting competition,” said Phillips. “It gave me a new perspectives on a situation that has affected the community that I hadn’t previously thought about or hadn’t thought that it affected me as much as it did.”
The video focused on the problem of veterans having troubles adapting to civilian life after their service. The Homeless Veterans Act of 2013 was passed by 113th Congress to help extend support for these veterans.
“We chose those legislation because it affected our community really strongly,” said Phillips. “In fact, Orange County had a surprisingly high population of homeless veterans.”
Le and Phillips interviewed the president of Veterans First, the department coordinator of Veterans Affair (VA) Long Beach Healthcare System and the veterans themselves, including one currently living on the street. Both girls had hoped to learn more about how veterans’ lives were affected by the piece of legislation.
“I think it was a really good experience because it was the first video competition that I had entered,” said Phillips. “It gave me a lot of experiencing of dealing with other people, contacting people I might not know and organizations to see if I can get interviews.”
Their video was submitted and judged according to region. For the West division, Le and Phillips were awarded third place. Their work was honored on Thursday, with the C-SPAN Bus, an interactive, multi-media learning center, stopping by Fountain Valley High School. At the ceremony, representatives for Fountain Valley’s mayor, state senator and congressional representatives were present to congratulate them and present them with certificates. Veterans who were featured in their video were also welcomed to attend.
“The fact that we are recognized by a television network, who will later come to our school and have an award ceremony, is a good motivation for us to keep working,” said Le. “It’s not common to be recognized and honored by a national institution.”
