One of the few benefits of our past year’s pandemic trauma has been that so much content that normally would have been delivered in ephemeral ways- live events, hard copy newsletters and the like, instead went online in video format leaving many organizations with their first permanent presence online! The 2020 Online Tacoma Moon Festival with its many videos is an example of this.
Tacoma Arts Live- the city’s primary producer of live stage events in the Theater District also needed to pivot to video projects. All live shows were cancelled and thus all grant funding had to be spent in online ways. They pivoted to a very admirable new project- training their staff to make short videos to help local organizations “tell their story.” A call for proposals was extended throughout Tacoma and CRPF was one of the organizations selected!
We used the opportunity to bring together a number of voices and organizations who have worked with us over the years. Former Mayor Bill Baarsma was tapped to speak in the film about the events of 1885 and the founding of CRPF in the 1990’s. Theresa Pan Hosley, President of CRPF spoke about the mission and the vision of the organization, and Dusty Gorman, digital archivist in the University of Puget Sound Library spoke about further details of the history, based upon her research, conducted while a student in a course taught by Puget Sound History Professor Andrew Gomez that resulted in the wonderful website tacomamethod.org. Tacoma Arts Live video makers Jake Nix and Rohan Sandoval took original video shots of the Chinese Reconciliation Park and places in downtown Tacoma where historical events took place during that awful year of 1885 and edited it all into a very engaging and efficient “telling of our story.”
The final 8 minute video is a great introduction to the organization, the history it seeks to memorialize, and its mission of fostering a harmonious present and future for the City of Tacoma.
CRPF is grateful to Tacoma Arts Live for selecting us for this video project that has left us with another important piece of permanent online content!