ENCORE CAMPS Documentary
by Oscar Garza

EDINBURG TX- Recently, some of the ENCORE CAMPS were filmed in a 16:9 digital format to highlight several students and their experiences at the different camps. “Before, I knew a lot about college, but there was still a part of me that was still scared of it and at the ENCORE camps I learned a lot that is really going to help me and now I feel why college is important and I know why you have to get ready now,” Kathy Cantu, 8th grade, South Middle School. Cantu has aspirations of becoming a lawyer; actually, she has her career pinpointed to becoming a corporate commercial lawyer. It makes one wonder how much more they could have accomplished if they too had been exposed to such a great program and were college ready in middle school. Even 6th grader, Thomas Negrete, had a strong idea of what he wanted to study when he grew up, “I want to be a veterinarian or a wild life expert and travel the world.”

Some students enjoyed the versatility of the camps,“It’s good to know different types of things you can study in college because right now you could say you want to do something, but after these experiences [at the ENCORE camps] maybe we change our minds to choose something else,”  Isiana Garcia, 8th grade, Memorial Middle School. Garcia has aspirations of studying architecture in college and really enjoyed the robotics camp because of all the planning and execution of the project. Marco Montallo, 8th grade, Memorial Middle School, enjoyed the CSI Forensics camp and the Robotics camp, “I think the ENCORE CAMP is really cool, it gives us a lot of hands on experience.” Montallo thinks of studying engineering when he grows up.

From College Readiness Day, to Robotics Day and finally to CSI Forensics Day, the short film will show how ENCORE truly inspires young minds and achieves their goal of developing a college going culture in the Rio Grande Valley. When audiences see the young students’ faces lit up by their dreams, the viewers will know that college readiness starts at an early age. The short documentary, approximately 15 minutes in length, will be airing on KATS TV, the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District television station. There will also be a streamlined version for internet found on www.getencore.org that runs for 6 minutes. “This video documentary highlights the work we are doing at ENCORE to promote the importance of college and career readiness” said Ernesto Villarreal, ENCORE Program Director. “Edinburg CISD has been one of the major ENCORE partners that have open its doors to work with their students and parents to assist in developing a college-going culture , this video documentary reflects the outcomes of this work” Villarreal concluded.  The videography and the editing was done by Oscar Garza, a LoneStar Emmy Award winning television producer.