raspberrymusic plays "Every Day"
Hi, everyone. I'm Samantha Guzman, Executive Editor of Decibel,
and I'm here with Visual Journalist, Multimedia Reporter Joe Rocha,
to talk about some of our best work we've done this year. Hi, Joe.
- Hey, how's it going?
- It's going good.
So I've really enjoyed this time, getting to sit down with each one of you all.
And what I've noticed is that each of you all have sort of
this unique perspective that you bring to all of your work.
I'm curious, what do you think that is for you?
If you could define what sort of the unifying theme
that unites a lot of your work, what would that be?
- I mean, one of it is definitely
growing up in San Antonio, like I feel like I pick a lot of stories that
I either relate to or just know a little bit about.
The other part of it is I've actually lived in Austin for almost 20 years.
So like a lot of these stories I've heard in the background or
or maybe not even seen them reported before.
So that definitely like attracts me to want to
tell these stories, you know, especially
if they haven't been reported on before, and I know that they're happening.
- What was the favorite story that you've worked on this year?
- So my favorite story that I've worked on this year is The Calling.
- It's the story of volunteers at the Cottonwood Baptist Church
who drop off healthy, ready to eat meals to the surrounding neighborhood in need.
The meals are provided by The Cook's Nook that was founded by Joi Chevalier.
But for the story, we interviewed Reverend
Byron Jackson, who was sort of at the helm of these food drop offs.
That neighborhood is sort of what folks there call a forgotten part of Del Valle.
It's a food desert, mostly gas stations
without healthy food options or or affordable food options.
So these volunteers drop these meals off weekly to the neighborhood
because many of these neighborhood folks are elderly or
they don't have transportation or even the means to buy healthy food.
- So how did our method of listening first lead you to this story?
- Yeah, sure. So I mean, the fact that Del Valle is a food
desert is an issue that was mentioned early on in our virtual events
as we started reporting and creating contacts.
This issue came up even more.
I actually met with a member of the Del Valle Community Coalition
that had been doing food drop offs during the onset of the pandemic.
And she brought up that folks either commute to get their groceries
or get their food from these gas stations, and that there is this infrastructure
already there with these gas stations
that, you know, if they could be used in some sort of way.
So what I did for the written part of this story was get in
touch with a Healthy Corner Store Program at the City of Austin.
They set up fridges and gas stations with affordable, healthy food
like vegetables and fruits, but also ready-to-eat meals by The Cook's Nook
Right? The same meals that are being handed out
by the Cottonwood Church volunteers.
The program isn't available in Del Valle yet, but the program lead
I interviewed for this story said that they hope to expand there soon.
So, you know, I followed up with the exact issue
that was mentioned to me by this Dale Valley community member.
I think what I love most about this story is that we hear a lot from our listening
sessions about issues that are going on in the community,
but it's really important to us that we don't just focus on the problems.
We focus on the people who are doing great work and trying to provide solutions.
And your story really highlights that.
What did you find was the most challenging part of trying to tell this story?
- Yeah, so I mean, this is such a big issue there
that everybody wanted to talk about it, so everything sort of fell into place,
you know, for this one.
But if I had to really just pick out what was challenging,
it's probably the b-roll that I shot
because the church volunteers were just super efficient
and handing out their meals that I needed to go like 20 times to go get b-roll.
You know, I was on foot chasing the folks around with the giant C300 and these
folks were on foot two or hanging out food from the back of their SUV.
But you could just tell
that they felt this urgency to get the mules to their neighborhood
as soon as possible.
So that was kind of the challenge, and I was definitely tired by the
end of each shoot.
I mean, for folks that don't know how much does the Sea
300 weigh and how long were you on foot
following these folks as they were dropping off these meals?
Yeah, I mean, sort of like a lot of our footage
we shoot with on sticks, right?
But because these folks were moving so fast, they had to go handheld and
see 300, depending, you know, after you put all this stuff on it,
it could weigh like 30 £40 or something with the battery and all that.
So we were walking around the neighborhood.
It was probably like a little mile and a half
radius and everyone just spreads out.
So I'm like, they're trying to pick on who, who I want to shoot,
who I want to feature, who I have my Adobe to get good audio.
And yeah, I mean, and it was hot, too.
It was like, you know, in the summer, you know, it definitely gave me
perspective of what one of these food drop offs are like for sure.
So what do you hope
the audience takes away from watching this story?
Yeah, so there are so many pockets of neighborhoods like this in Dog Valley
that, like so many things. And neglect is the word that comes up time
and time after from community members that are they felt neglected for years,
but they're starting to get attention
because there's all this development going on in that area.
I feel like in most of the stories we reported on, it's like
folks are just one consideration.
You know, they want local officials to be considerate of them,
incoming businesses and even incoming residents for these base
level needs medical facilities, grocery stores, transportation, internet, gyms.
It's a long list and folks are just frustrated and they want to be heard.
So for me, I just hope that we're doing a good enough job
because their voices are important and they need to be heard.
Well, it's been an
amazing year and you've been doing such amazing work.
I'm so thankful that I get to work with talented folks
like you every day, but it's just been awesome. Thanks, Joe.
Oh, thank you. You
You can find this story and more at Decibel A-T-X Dot ORG.
Have a great day. Thanks, y'all.
raspberrymusic plays "Every Day"