POV Awards Grants to PBS Stations to Build Awareness and Dialogue Around 'American Promise' and 'Brooklyn Castle' Documentaries

Programs are part of American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen, Which Helps Communities Understand and Address the High School Dropout Crisis

NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- American Documentary | POV has awarded grants totaling $150,000 to 17 PBS stations to support local programming and community activities connected with the award-winning documentaries American Promise and Brooklyn Castle. The films and related community activities are part of American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen, a public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that helps communities identify and implement solutions to improve high school graduation rates. 

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Grants have been awarded to Detroit Public TV; East Tennessee PBS (Knoxville, Tenn.); KCPT (Kansas City, Mo.); Mountain Lake PBS (Plattsburgh, N.Y.); NET Nebraska (Lincoln, Neb.); The Nine Network (St. Louis); PBS SoCal (Costa, Mesa, Calif.); Public Broadcasting Atlanta (PBA); UNC-TV (Research Triangle Park, N.C.); Vermont Public Television (VPT); WFYI Public Media (Indianapolis); WGBH Boston; WHUT/Howard University Television (Washington, D.C.); WMHT (Troy, N.Y.);  WTVI PBS Charlotte (Charlotte, N.C.); and WUCF TV (Orlando, Fla.); WXXI (Rochester, N.Y.). Each grantee will broadcast American Promise starting in February 2014 (check local listings), and select stations will rebroadcast Brooklyn Castle.

The stations will engage community stakeholders in discussions around key issues and solutions raised in the films, including the value of afterschool programs and ways to close the black male achievement gap. In addition, POV will support stations' efforts to raise awareness of these issues with a robust radio and online advertising and marketing campaign.

"POV's American Graduate engagement campaign builds on the extensive work that CPB has accomplished in reaching communities facing educational challenges, especially communities of color," said Eliza Licht, vice president of community engagement for POV. "This campaign provides concrete examples and tools to help parents, caretakers, teachers and young people address these issues in their communities and improve outcomes for students."

"Parents in America are struggling to secure the highest quality education for their children," said Cynthia López, co-executive producer of POV. "Local PBS stations are taking the lead by partnering with parents and community-based and educational institutions to help students in their communities achieve their full potential. POV is proud to join with PBS and CPB to be part of the solution. This campaign would not be possible without the invaluable support of CPB's American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen."

Stations will have access to POV's educational materials to assist in the implementation of their outreach events, including in-depth discussion guides with talking points, action steps and resources; lesson plans designed for grades 6-12 and college students; and POV's companion websites, www.pbs.org/pov/americanpromise and www.pbs.org/pov/brooklyncastle.  

About the films:
American Promise, by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, premieres on POV on Monday, Feb. 3, 2014 at 10 p.m. (check local listings). The film spans 13 years as these middle-class African-American parents in Brooklyn, N.Y., turn their cameras on their son, and his best friend who make their way through Manhattan's prestigious private Dalton School. Chronicling the boys' divergent paths from kindergarten through high school graduation, this provocative, intimate documentary presents complicated truths about America's struggle to come of age on issues of race, class and opportunity.

American Promise won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The film is a co-production of Rada Film Group, ITVS and POV's Diverse Voices Project, with funding provided by CPB. It is part of American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen, made possible by CPB. The film is produced in association with American Documentary | POV and is a co-presentation with the National Black Programming Consortium.

On Jan. 14, 2014, Spiegel & Grau will publish PROMISES KEPT: Raising Black Boys to Succeed in School and in Life, by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson with Hilary Beard. Where American Promise raises provocative questions, Promises Kept delivers answers, combining insights Brewster and Stephenson derived from their own experiences with the latest research on closing the black male achievement gap and providing readers with an unprecedented toolkit of practical strategies from infancy through the teenaged years.

Katie Dellamaggiore's Brooklyn Castle, which premiered on POV in October 2013, looks at a powerhouse junior high chess team that has won more than 30 national championships, the most of any school in the country. I.S. 318's 85-member squad boasts so many strong players that the late Albert Einstein, a dedicated chess maven, would rank fourth if he were on the team. Most astoundingly, this Brooklyn school serves mainly minority students from families living below the poverty line. Brooklyn Castle is the exhilarating story of five of the school's aspiring young players and how chess became the school's unlikely inspiration for academic success.

For the full release and complete list of Station activities, visit: www.pbs.org/pov/pressroom/2013/pov-american-graduate-cpb-grants.php.

SOURCE American Documentary | POV