Introducing Through the Lens

There is a moment that happens when a child looks through a camera for the first time and realizes the world will hold still long enough for them to really see it. Not glance at it. See it. That moment is the entire reason this program exists.

Today we are announcing the official founding of Through the Lens: Mobile Youth Photography Program, a free, bilingual photography initiative built to put cameras, mentorship, and creative confidence directly into the hands of children who would not otherwise have access to any of it.

We are starting small and starting close to home. Our pilot launches this summer with third-grade students at Milton-Freewater Elementary School, running as a bilingual after-school course called Through the Lens: The Art of Seeing / El Arte de Ver, taught in both English and Spanish from the very first session. From there, we plan to grow into the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Weston/Athena, and into Walla Walla as the program expands. Milton-Freewater is the beginning of something we built to last for years.

History does not remember the people who waited to see if something would work. It remembers the ones who acted first. Dr. Sepehr Maxood is a first-generation immigrant who knows firsthand what it means to build a life in a place that was not always built with you in mind. He understands, in a way that cannot be taught, what it feels like to need someone to simply say yes before anyone else will. So when he had the chance to be that someone for a group of children he had never met, he did not hesitate. He said yes first.

His founding gift established what we are proudly calling the Maxood FRAME Fund (First-generation Rising Arts Mentorship and Education) and it is not an overstatement to say that without it, this program would still be nothing more than an idea in a notebook. Dr. Maxood did not just write a check. He listened to our story, and decided their future was worth investing. This is what it looks like when someone believes in a future they will never personally witness, simply because it deserves to exist.

Because of him, that belief now has roots. Roots that are already becoming a classroom, a curriculum, and ten third graders standing at the edge of something brand new.

Thank you, Dr. Maxood. We will spend years making sure this gift was worth giving.

"Art is one of the few things that can save us when there is nothing else," is something I find myself saying often, because I believe it completely. We are starting in Milton-Freewater, but this program was built to grow. When we have more, we can give more.

None of this happens without Cia Cortinas Rood, who has spent the last four years serving the Milton-Freewater School District and who has been the spearhead in finding the support that made this launch possible. Cia holds a Master's in Education and is currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Administration. She is the kind of educator who shows up fully, every single time, and this program carries her fingerprints on every page of its curriculum.

Here is what we actually believe, and what this whole program is built on:

We teach students to see with intention, to use a camera to tell the true story of their own lives and the cultures they come from, and eventually, to build a skill they can earn a living from. A camera in a child's hands becomes a way to say this is what I see, this is who I am, and this is worth showing you. That is what this program protects: a generation learning that their perspective has value, and a path for that perspective to support them for the rest of their lives.

Not every child who picks up a camera through this program will fall in love with photography. That has never been the point. The point is that children who never would have had access to professional instruction or real equipment now have both, in their own hands, in their own classroom, taught by people who showed up because they believed it mattered before anyone asked them to.

The pilot will culminate in a public gallery exhibition of student work right here at Calliope Creative, giving these kids, their families, and this whole community a chance to see what ten weeks of looking closely at the world can produce. I cannot wait for you to see it.

If you want to read more about the community and the story behind why this work matters so deeply to us, you can find that here.

This is just the beginning. Milton-Freewater first. Then the places this valley has been waiting for someone to show up for.

Thank you, Dr. Maxood. Thank you, Cia. Thank you to everyone who believed this was worth building before there was any proof it would work.

If you want to help this program reach the next classroom, the next valley, the next child who has never held a camera, reach out. We would love to have you with us.

In Service To Your Imagination,

Annelise