My Story Pitch
The process of brainstorming ideas for this social media story assignment was not an easy one for me. I began thinking about possible topics weeks ago and as the deadline for the pitch drew closer, I became more and more blocked in the creativity department. I knew some of the topics that I was super passionate about, but I couldn’t think of how to turn them into stories with clear vision. After a lot of thought, many feedback sessions with trusted individuals and a bit of research, I came to a story that I believe is very important that others hear and I couldn’t be more excited to tell it!
I am going to look at the isolation that came along with the pandemic that hit our country back in March and how the lack of community has affected our mental health. I already had a few contacts in mind to interview. One is a close friend who I know had a very difficult time with feelings of loneliness during the quarantine and has said herself that her mental health was in a scary place for a while. Another person I plan on talking to for my story is a pastor in the Greeley community, who has been intentional to love people well and has worked to create a strong sense of community in the town. He has seen a lot of change in the people of Greeley since he started working in the community. I believe exploring his experiences and looking closely at the changes he is seeing in Greeley could help us look at the isolation that, on a bigger scale, our country is experiencing and reflect on how we can create a sense of community in this time where people are told to isolate themselves.
I want to share research and statistics on mental health and the correlation between that and the need for community in one’s life. I’ll look at how the issue was before Covid-19 and how the pandemic affected the issue up until now. I’ll also share stories of people who have experienced extreme loneliness in the last few months as well as those who have fought for community in this time. My goal is to bring awareness to the topic of mental health and the importance that community has on all of it as well as to inspire anyone listening that they can be the one to step up and create that community through loving people well.
After pitching this idea to the class, I got some great feedback from a couple of students suggesting people I could talk to. One student suggested I talk to counselors at the counseling center on campus at UNC to gather data specifically on the mental health of UNC students in the last few months. This is a great idea and I might reach out to the counseling center if that’s the direction I end up taking. Another great idea was to look at how online counseling sessions has affected patients. I like this idea a lot because it would fit into my story’s goal of looking at how important community is to our mental health and how much of our lives have gone virtual which can feel very isolating even if you are connecting with others in that way.
I plan on telling this story mainly on Instagram because I believe that would be the platform that would help this story to reach the most people. I think a possible alternative platform I would use would be YouTube for an interview type video. Overall, I believe I still have some brainstorming to do as far as the best way in which to tell this story from beginning to end and how I want to present the conversations I have with my sources, but I think it’s a good start and an important story for the time we are in.
