Stories of Impact - Kcos TV

BECOMING
AWARE
Stories of Impact
Hunger and obesity are two overlapping extremes
taking a toll simultaneously on Texas’
youth. KCOS-TV in collaboration with other Texas
PBS stations brought awareness to the concern
through its participation in Texas Feeding Minds.
The major outcome of the project is Feeding
Minds: Texas Takes on Hunger and Obesity.
This news-style documentary is scheduled to air
statewide on Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. The program is a
series of woven short documentaries from the contributing
stations that shine a light on the topic to
generate successful solutions used in Texas. Participating
stations included El Paso, San Antonio,
Corpus Christi, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Lubbock
and Amarillo.
El Paso’s KCOS-TV produced a short standalone
documentary featuring La Mujer Obrera
who’s recognized for opening Mercado Mayapan.
It offers healthy food alternatives and classes
within its facility to the impoverished Chamizal
neighborhood.
The documentary travels across Texas to share
solutions and overall bring awareness to the issue
of hunger and obesity. But KCOS-TV wanted to
bring it back home. What’s the magnitude of the
issue in El Paso? What can be done to avoid the
escalation of the problem? To answer these questions,
we asked representatives from organizations
that are making their mark in El Paso and reaching
out to alleviate the issue at hand.
That day we had Kevin Pearson, President/
CEO of the YMCA-El Paso, Rubi Orozco, public
health specialist from La Mujer Obera, Celeste
Care, senior nutritionist of the WIC program, Tim
Cox representing Kelly Memorial Food Pantry
and Marissa Acosta, nutrition educator from El
Pasoans Fighting Hunger.
This two-part project began in the fall of 2011
with an outreach program. Texans of all ages
shared stories on the topic via a YouTube channel.
El Pasoans from the YMCA, El Pasoans Fighting
Hunger, Kelly Memorial Food Pantry, Socorro
High School Summer Tennis Program and Riverside
Elementary contributed about 100 videos in
total featured in the channel: www.youtube.com/
texasfeedingminds. The effort, which was possible
by loaning digital cameras to the groups, will continue
updating stories through February.
PROHIBITION IN THE BORDERLAND
Many times, history repeats itself.
That simple lesson was one that was learned in
Prohibition in the Borderland, a 10-minute piece
made in collaboration with Texas PBS to complement
the national Ken Burns’ fi lm, Prohibition.
The local piece gave Prohibiton a unique angle
by focusing it on the Texas-Mexico border. To illustrate
the borderland in the 1920s and compare
it to the eerily similar drug wars of today, KCOS-
TV reached out to a local historian, Bob Chessey
and three University of El Paso-Texas professors-
-Dr. Charles Ambler, Tony Payan and Dr. Howard
Campbell.
The fi lm also delves into the civility issues surrounding
Prohibition and narcotraffi cking now.
For the short documentary there was a web-
KCOS-TV REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY
We didn’t stop with just local programs. KCOS-TV extended its reach by
collaborating with Texas PBS and co-producing two documentaries featured
in the schedules of other PBS stations in the state. These documentaries
highlighted two major issues affecting the borderland community--the
coexistence of hunger and obesity and Mexico’s drug violence.
FEEDING MINDS: TEXAS TAKES ON HUNGER & OBESITY
site created. This site allowed stories that were
not covered in the piece to be accessed online. It
allowed other communities such as Galveston to
give a hometown perspective to Prohibition as
well. There you could also access the 10-minute
short documentary.
There was also an outreach component. This
component was held during the Plaza Theater
Classic Film Festival in El Paso. There KCOS
worked with Texas Archive of Moving Images to
collect old footage to be archived. Also involved
was the El Paso Public Library who discovered
images for the fi lm.
This project, which aired Mon., Oct. 5 across
Texas, was made possible through a grant from
WETA.