By Judy Marvin, Secretary, North Central Pennsylvania Group (with inspiration from the Moshannon Group)
The North Central Pennsylvania Group was interested in having a film festival or showing films as a fundraiser. In the summer of 2023 Dr. David Heineman from Bloomsburg University released his full-length documentary NEPADOC, a non-verbal meditation on the environmental, industrial, and cultural history of the Susquehanna River. (NEPADOC stands for Northeast Pennsylvania Documentary.)
Ben Hayes, Program Director of Watershed Sciences and Engineering at Bucknell University agreed to share the costs of the screening with us and invited our group to table at the annual River Symposium. We also had marketing support from the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences and the Place Studies Program. All were excited to learn of this film about the Susquehanna and were delighted to collaborate with us.
In addition to the film screening, we arranged an interview of Dr. Heineman with NPR affiliate WVIA's ArtScene.
We consider this project to be a success. A slide show produced by Jim Wylie, co-chair of the Pennsylvania Chapter, on the programs and goals of the Sierra Club ran for one-half hour before the film. The event was well-attended and received an enthusiastic response from the audience. It was a learning experience for us, and we gained valuable experience in outreach, coordination, and event planning. We received widespread publicity in our region and on Bucknell's campus and developed good relationships with environmental professors at Bucknell and with Dr. Heineman at Bloomsburg.
More information about David Heineman’s NEPADOC is available here.
This article previously appeared in TRACKS, the North Central Pennsylvania Group’s newsletter for Spring 2024.
This blog was included as part of the April 2024 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!