After-school program helps Missoula students bring dream projects to life
It can be hard for families of teenagers to find something for them to do after school. Families First is trying to fill that gap with the Dream Bigger Afterschool Program that launched in September, which is aimed at helping seventh through 12th graders pursue their passion projects at Missoula and Lolo's public libraries.
For the kids, that means time, mentorship and resources to work on anything from SCUBA certification to filmmaking. The goal is that they'll create something that'll do more than just gather dust, teen program director Nick Ehlers said.
For Allyson Curran, a seventh-grade student at C.S. Porter Middle School, that hopefully means launching a game for horror enthusiasts to play.
That game, currently titled "Catfe," takes place at a cat cafe, where players will be able to play as either a worker or customer. They'll uncover the cat-sacrificing demon-dealing mysteries of the nefarious cafe owner, all while running from monstrous cats. During a recent day at the program, Curran had sketches of possible cafe logos, playable characters and possessed villains were strewn across her desk, showcasing a cute yet unsettling style for the game's art direction.
On another table sprawled a black and white photo of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. That photo was taken by Chris Taylor, and will be auctioned off as part of the program to pay for his daughter, Selene Taylor, to get SCUBA certified.
"I wanna be a marine biologist because I've always been fascinated with sharks," Selene Taylor said.
She emphasized that sharks aren't bloodthirsty monsters. But monsters such as Godzilla have inspired 16-year-old student Kalijah Piper, who attends Aspire High School, to make his own film that could be shown at the Roxy.
Piper doesn't plan on leaping right into the film industry as a writer or director. Instead, Dream Bigger's national arm, Dream Bigger America, got him in contact with a Roxy employee who helped Piper get into a production assistant course. Now he's a certified production assistant and plans to work his way up from there.
He's not the only one inspired by movies. Teagan Tecca, an eighth-grader at Bonner Elementary, found a love for cars ignited by watching movies. Now she wants to make her own line of RC cars to sell. First, she's disassembling existing RC cars, buying parts and hopefully 3D-printing a frame to make her own fast RC car to race. Dream Bigger got her a screwdriver kit that she's using to strip cars down to their metal frames, seeing how they're put together.
Fellow aspiring entrepreneur and Washington Middle School student Makenna Cochrane wants to start a sweets business called "Cotton Candy Club."
"I have a passion for baking," Cochrane said. "It's always been something that's a wonder to me."
She wants to get a cotton candy machine with program funding, then sell cotton candy and hard candy. Because the farmers market doesn't start until summer, she's trying to find a place to sell from. Another challenge she's facing is figuring out how to make nutrition labels — middle schools typically don't have any courses on food packaging, after all. It's certainly a challenge, but that's why Cochrane picked this project.
"I can prove to myself that I can achieve hard things," Cochrane said. "It doesn't have to be a dream anymore."
Andy Tallman is the education reporter for the Missoulian.
Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox. Education Reporter
