Bringing Our Theme Of "Create Community" To Life

Gary and Ryan of Hayman Studio with Kelley Gibson and David Kennedy (center)
at the voice-over recording for the 2014 campaign video

When I joined the Cultural Alliance of York County as the Director of Communications & Engagement a few months ago, my main task at hand was to take the message of "Create Community" for our 2014 Annual Campaign and bring it to life. Who is the Cultural Alliance? What do we do to benefit York County and its residents? How do we illustrate the ways that our eight partner agencies and the Creative Impact Awards develop lively neighborhoods, new jobs, and smarter kids? And how to we show our volunteers, donors, and the public that each and every one of them is vital in this effort to create community in York?

Instead of spelling it out in numbers and figures pointing to the impact that the Cultural Alliance and its partner agencies make on York County, we instead posed the bigger question; "What Makes A Community?" What are the pieces that are needed to turn a group of people into a true community, one that thrives on creativity and new ideas? We didn't want to tell people, we wanted to show them. To do that, we needed help.

We turned to Ryan Hayman and Gary Gearheart of Hayman Studio, gave them creative control, and asked them to tell our story. With their wealth of artistic talent, production know-how, and amazing skills they shot footage of our partner agencies and Creative Impact Award projects to illustrate how the Cultural Alliance creates community, piece by piece, project by project. These images are truly worth more than words; they get to the heart of what we do. We are honored to have worked with such great partners who truly captured what it means to create community.

We hope you enjoy this watching this video as much as we did making it. After viewing, please share it to spread the word and do your piece to help us Create Community in York!