By Sam Montgomery
CarmelFest has expanded its volunteer opportunities this year through an internship program, allowing students to showcase their work community-wide.
Lorena Lane, CarmelFest creative director, recruited students to assist with advertising operations, including Carmel High School senior Joseph Conway, and Olivia Wenger, a freshman graphic design student at the University of Cincinnati. Conway edits videos and designs print and digital materials. Wenger creates the print advertisements for Current in Carmel. Chelsea Dai, now a freshman at the Rhode Island School of Design, previously designed the CarmelFest logo and other materials during her intern experience in 2018.
“I wanted to give students the opportunity to discover what it’s like to work on projects that actually make a difference to the festival and our community,” Lane said. “They learn about the creative process and develop valuable skills they can take into their future careers.”
Bec Hunter, CarmelFest parade and media/PR director, and editor Desiree Williams recruited three CHS students as volunteer writers. Williams mentors juniors Sam Montgomery and Aditi Kumar and sophomore Grace Xu as they write promotional material.
“Our CarmelFest mentoring program provides a real-world experience for Carmel High School students already writing for the ‘Pinnacle’ yearbook and the ‘HiLite’ (newspaper),” Hunter said. “We enjoy giving them the opportunity to see their work in local newspapers.”
Hunter said she is pleased with the work that has been created so far and looks forward to continuing the program in the future.
