Food for Hartford

This mul­ti­me­dia crew of stu­dents – Amar Batra, Kevin Bosti­ga, Claire Galvin, Frank Green­wood Jr., William Heyne, Makha­la Hug­gins, Michelle Kalup­s­ki, Paul­Michael Mul­lal­ly, Annabelle Orlan­do, Steven Tuck­er, Jen­nifer Walsh, Julia Werth, and Bai­ley Wright – spent many hours over sev­er­al weeks inter­view­ing towns­peo­ple, film­ing mar­kets and neigh­bor­hoods, research­ing Hartford’s his­to­ry and gen­er­al­ly get­ting a feel for the peo­ple and how they are affected.

They devot­ed many more weeks to writ­ing, rewrit­ing, edit­ing and fine-tun­ing their pho­tos, video and writ­ten work, with input from fac­ul­ty advis­ers Mau­reen Croteau, Steven G. Smith and Gail Mac­Don­ald.

A mix of sto­ry­telling, art and video shares the sto­ry of Hart­ford’s food desert and details in gov­ern­ment pro­grams such as SNAP and WIC. This pack­age high­lights the stu­den­t’s own work, from sto­ry lay­out and design to mul­ti­me­dia fea­tures. The stu­dents earned cred­it for the project through the UConn Jour­nal­ism Department’s Pub­li­ca­tion Prac­tice course.

View the project: Food For Hartford »

Top pho­to: Sofia, a pre-kinder­garten stu­dent at the Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences Mag­net School in Hart­ford, picks a fruit choice from many options for lunch. The school uses the “build-a-tray” sys­tem where stu­dents fill their lunch tray with a pro­tein, whole grain, veg­etable, fruit and milk por­tion.  (Pho­to by Bai­ley Wright)