TECH USED
Phantom Drone Megatron Final Cut Pro Photoshop Adobe Premiere
E IS FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
EAST AT SOUTHSIDE CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL
IMPACTED
Bad Boy Mowers White River Medical Center
Precise Heating and Electric Dominos Batesville Poultry Citizens Bank
First Community Bank Grassroots Equipment US Pizza
Littlefield Express Wood Family Dealerships Shelter Insurance ACE Sports Future Fuels
E
AST students have a reputation for great projects that are the result of exploratory learning and serving others, but it is not often that we hear of them starting a marketing service for businesses in their town and surrounding counties. The students of Southside Charter High School in Batesville, Arkansas have given the E in EAST, Education Accelerated by Service and Technology, a new meaning: Entrepreneurship. Southside Live started as an EAST project led by a single student several years ago, and now it is known for its community impact and for developing enterprising students in droves. In 2012, Drew Hancock, an alumnus of Southside and current producer for Arkansas State University - TV, used his passion for video creation to approach his EAST facilitator and school administrators with the idea that the school should broadcast its football games live. School administrators were in support of his efforts and purchased a laptop
and mixer to accompany the camera the school already owned and allowed Drew and other students to produce a student-led broadcast. “With limited equipment — it was not in HD — and it was not ESPN, but they loved it and made it work,” says current EAST facilitator Jason Weaver. Some may have seen this as a limitation, but the students in EAST at Southside saw it as an opportunity to impact the larger community and local Superintendent Roger Rich agreed. After seeing the commitment the students made to producing a weekly broadcast, Superintendent Rich agreed to purchase higher-end equipment in 2017 that would allow Southside to provide the community with HD footage of sporting events and other school activities. After this investment, EAST students began taking steps to make this project more sophisticated on every level and ultimately created a social enterprise. “For football and other sports, we are producing an HD-quality broadcast that includes a pre-recorded coaches
