bronze
Dolan & Hansen
The Maplewood Foundation is a local non-profit that raises funds for Maplewood Elementary School, part of Portland Public Education Schools. Their annual mission has been to raise funds for more educational assistants to supplement teachers with personalized instruction, helping offset teacher workload while meeting the challenges of increased classroom sizes.
As the theme of the annual fundraiser this year was 80's, we decided to go all-in with a music video supporting Educational Asisstants while leaning into New Kids on the Block, Milli Vanilli, and Tiffany.
Simply, we never produced a classic music video, let alone assembled a pop band with 6-10-year-olds! We had to find a local audio house to record the kid's lyrics beforehand, find a choreographer to provide some dance moves, and tie it all together in post. The actual production was perhaps the easiest element of it, because it was familiar.
The main objective was to highlight the work of Educational Assistants and the value they bring to Maplewood Elementary, which hopefully was evident in the lyrics and visuals.
1) Lyrically we consistently referenced the value of Educational Assistants: "Whether tackling math problems or a friendship woe, Educational assistants, you make learning glow."
2) Visually we consistently showcased Educational Assistants at the school achieving with students.
3) The biggest result is that this video helped the Foundation raise money for two Educational assistants in the 2024/25 school year.
We leaned into old 80's pop, across iconic, diverse boy bands and female pop stars. Our diverse kid group somewhat flipped the script, dominated by three girls to two boys.
We leveraged ChatGPT for the song lyrics, specifically prompting "devise an 80s song with as many 80s references as possible, celebrating educational assistants at Maplewood Elementary in Portland, Oregon."
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