The Hope Defined Project

This local effort is worth supporting.  Take a look.

The Hope Defined Project produces a film for teens by teens in an effort to offer prevention and hope through creative expression. This year’s theme is on issues surrounding teen suicide.

Nickel A Day Films (Naperville-based film studio), along with Hope For The Day (Non-for-Profit) are offering teens the opportunity to gain free experience working on a professionally produced, non-profit film, The Hope Defined Project. This is a film for teens, by teens: this movie is being produced for teens to help offer suicide prevention through creative expression.

Our Project:

The Hope Defined Project was created to provide an ongoing artistic outlet for DuPage High School Students to connect, support and speak about issues that directly impact their lives.

Every two years, Nickel A Day Films will select a relevant social issue and a corresponding non-profit organization with which to partner. Our goal for each project is to start a conversation by providing high school students with a complex “problem” and a network of people and experiences to develop and present a “solution”. We will achieve this through goal-setting, project management, meeting deadlines and a lot of hard, but really fun work … all while learning a little something about film-making along the way.

Students will work on teams under the tutelage of film industry professionals. They will learn “hands-on” how movies are made – everything that goes into a large scale production. We believe in teach-by-touch. We believe in learning from mistakes. We believe in finding and celebrating the unique creativity of each individual.
For our inaugural effort, Nickel A Day Films has partnered with the Illinois non-profit movement, Hope for the Day. Based in Chicago, Hope for the Day is committed to utilizing music and the arts as a defense mechanism to suicide. Our film will specifically take a look at Teen Suicide in an effort to offer education, prevention and hope through creative expression.

We believe this is a critically important issue that is too often overlooked by parents, teachers, coaches and friends. As a community, we tend to focus on “teen issues” that have tangible culprits. However, the risk factors and influences that frequently lead to suicide tend to be elusive. They build up and take hold over time, quietly and out of sight.

In 2012, the Center for Disease Control reported that nationally, for youth between the ages of 10 and 24, suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death. From 2000 – 2009, the youth age group with the highest rate of suicide and self-inflicted injury mortality were those aged 15-19 years.

In Illinois, 633 youth aged 10-19 died from suicide from 2000 – 2009.

The 2011 Illinois Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed that the in each category: students contemplating suicide and creating a plan and attempting suicide, the highest percentage was reported by 9th GRADE STUDENTS, with more females than males reporting.

Our goal is to start a community conversation about Teen Suicide. Let’s face it, talk about it, and bring it into the light. By embedding DuPage High School Students into the film-making process to help tell a story of change.

Fundraiser:

To make this movie free for students, we need financial support, though sponsorship and donations. This is a non-profit 501c3, and we are accepting donations. You can donate on our facebook page, Facebook.com/HopeDefinedProject.

Our fundraiser is at The Wise Boxer Pour House 16 W. Jefferson Ave. Naperville, IL 60540 on November 14th from 6:00pm-8:00pm. For a $50 donation at the door there will be food, drinks, speakers, and a video screening about our project. All donations go to the support of teen suicide awareness.

Sponsors:

If you donate $250, you will receive a special thank-you in the credits. For $500, you will receive your logo in the credits. For $1,000, you will receive your logo on our poster, which will be distributed throughout the DuPage County area, as well as your logo in the credits. For sponsorship of $2,500+, you will receive executive producer credit, product placement in the film, your logo on the poster, and your logo in the credits.

This is a community-based project and it is very important that we get the word out. Please “like” and share our page, Facebook.com/HopeDefinedProject. This is also where we will be posting most of our updates and information on volunteer days. We have also posted a facebook event for our fundraiser from this page. We also post our information on Facebook.com/NickelADayFilms, Twitter: @NickelADayFilms, and Instagram: NickelADayFilms.

[ NOTE: After my initial posting I found some better text describing the Hope Defined Project and substituted it above.  Steve ]