For my Capstone, I helped lead Rocketfest 2025, a student-run film and photo festival showcasing work from Philadelphia public school students. The festival aims to amplify student voices and allow public school students (who often have fewer resources and opportunities to create films) to have their work appreciated. I worked with Olivia Gavin and Noah Callender, and we each took on specific roles: Olivia led communication, Noah handled presentation, and I directed marketing.

Starting in October, we held weekly meetings with our mentor where we created a timeline and organized the various logistics of running the festival. As the head of marketing, I created Rocketfest’s branding, designed promotional materials, and ran our social media.

The event took place on May 7th at the Parkway Central Free Library and included an intro speech from the three of us, a screening of 15 student films, a slideshow of selected photographs, and an awards ceremony. The awards ceremony was a new aspect that our team added to Rocketfest as a chance to give filmmakers and photographers even more recognition for their wonderful work. We had a great turnout, with SLA DigVid and CAPA students, teachers, judges, and families and friends in attendance.

Rocketfest taught me the importance of organization and teamwork in a major project, and showed me how rewarding it is to create an event that brings people together.

Attached are images of our festival and the bibliography I created to guide my work as head of marketing.

My capstone project was to assist the homeless population as well as local shelters in the City of Philadelphia. The process was a combination of collecting items and distributing them to different kinds of shelters. Not only did I give the donations I received to different shelters, but I also handed bags with different necessities inside to homeless people I saw on the streets.

In the past, we have collected blankets, jackets, and other items before but never the amount that we collected for my capstone. Because my mom and I help out whenever we can, I thought that this would be a perfect idea for my capstone. Taking a passion of mine and doing a big project on it was the best thing I could’ve done.

I’ve learned so much throughout the process of my capstone project. I’ve learned a lot about the importance of time management. I’ve also got to hear some peoples’ stories and how they ended up homeless. I’ve learned how important helping out truly is to me and I realized I want to make a nonprofit organization. I gained so much knowledge about different organizations and shelters, and I learned a lot of new editing techniques. To me, the most important thing I learned is that I want to do this for the rest of my life. I never want to lose my passion for giving back. I want to have a non-profit later in the future alongside a job that can help many people.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oijgavBY0-ajt_2PFkJaZ4e6h9KI-2pW

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGnPSLWjtM/yNm9yze-mF7wjH6GPpemyg/edit?utm_content=DAGnPSLWjtM&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton