PR Class Teams with Alumnus for 2ND Annual Nonprofilt Film Festival

WITH STUDENT HELP, ALUMNUS DAVID J. NEFF'S LIGHTS CAMERA HELP PUTS CAUSES ON THE BIG SCREEN

Lights Camera Help will kick off its second-annual film festival on Thursday, the first of three days screening the top 33 nonprofit and cause-related films submitted from around the world.

This is the second summer that Dave Junker's Public Relations Techniques, an academic service learning course, has been involved with the event, helping with pre- and post-event publicity, event execution and evaluation.

"It's exciting to witness how we've been able to help the festival grow," Junker says. "Nearly 100 more films were submitted this year, with a greater variety of causes, from a greater variety of places."

Junker says that working for a real organization for an actual event makes this required class, traditionally focused on communication tactics, a "fun and engaging way to learn."

It's also a big help to David J. Neff, co-founder of the festival and an alumnus of the public relations program at UT-Austin.

"The fact that the University of Texas students are some of the best in the world, and come tackle nonprofit challenges with tremendous respect and knowledge, is a benefit that I can't find anywhere else in the world of volunteering," he says.

Several students who took the class last summer have stayed on as volunteers, and Lights Camera Help was able to create four internships that count as credit toward a public relations degree.

Lights Camera Help is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to raise awareness about nonprofit and cause-related organizations through the use of film. In addition to the film festival, the organization hosts film-making workshops for nonprofits and helps match filmmakers with nonprofits and causes.