Four students, over one year of work, produced a 15-minute documentary called “Latinos at Lincoln,” which was screened in room 169 on April 24.

The video was filmed and edited by seniors Gabby Beard, Annie Savaria-Watson, Jillian Briglia, and Missy Gerlach. Their goal was to introduce students to the Lincoln latino community and bridge the gap between them and other groups of students.

It all started when IB history and Spanish teacher Melinda Gale received a grant from the non-profit organization “Facing History and Ourselves.” When Gale requested funding, she wrote on the application that she had several native Spanish speakers in one of her history classes. Gale explained that the students had revealed a lot about how they immigrated to the United States, including a story about an immigrant who crawled through an old sewer tunnel to cross the border safely.

Gale used the opportunity for a grant to help students create a short film about Latino life at Lincoln, with emphasis on their immigration processes. “When Ms. Gale told me about applying for the grant, I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn about a new culture that was similar to my family’s, but also very different at the same time,” Beard said. “I would be able to use my spanish-speaking skills to impact the Lincoln community to bring two groups together to make a more unified student body.”