Volunteer Information

Join Our Community of Volunteers!

Our mission at the Amherst Cinema and Pleasant Street Theater is to serve our community as a cultural and educational resource. This fall, we are launching See•Hear•Feel•Film, a five-unit educational program that helps third graders develop the visual and written literacy skills needed to think critically about the images they see every day. We have become a visual society. Teaching our children how to interpret the constant barrage of images on television, film, video, and the Web is one of society’s most pressing educational concerns.

Throughout the 2011–2012 school year, third graders from elementary schools throughout the Pioneer Valley will visit the Amherst Cinema twice for two-hour workshops.Students will view and discuss short films from around the world and then work creatively in small groups led by volunteer educational facilitators (that’s your role). With your help, students will work collaboratively, practicing the methods filmmakers use to tell stories. For example, each child contributes to a collective film outline or “storyboard”, learning in the process that films are moving stories based on words and pictures. These activities are designed to help children learn to write with clarity and confidence, improve their own storytelling skills, and become keener observers of the world around them.

Join our team as a Volunteer Educational Facilitator and have a positive impact on the lives of young children across the region!

What You’ll Do
Volunteer educational facilitators lead groups of eight to ten third-grade students in collaborative activities during the second hour of each workshop. Workshops are held at Amherst Cinema on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, 9:45–11:45 a.m. We ask that volunteers commit to at least five workshops per unit(Unit 1: October- December 2011; Unit 2: February-May 2012).

We’ll Train You

All volunteers are asked to participate in two training sessions.

Unit One training: Monday, October 3, 2011, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. followed by a catered lunch

Unit Two training: Monday, January 9, 2012, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. followed by a catered lunch

How to Volunteer

Please complete the volunteer schedule registration form and send it by email, fax, or mail as soon as possible to: Education Assistant, Amherst Cinema Arts Center, Inc., 28 Amity Street, Amherst, MA 01002; fax: 413.253.2541; email: admin@amherstcinema.org. Once we receive your form, we will contact you.

Learn More

Contact Samm Smith, education assistant, with any questions (admin@amherstcinema.org or 413.253.2547 ext. 108).For details about See•Hear•Feel•Film, visit www.amherstcinema.org/education/See-Hear-Feel-Film.