Garner News (Wake and Johnston County, NC), March 20, 2012
Summary:
On March 10, North Garner Middle School and the Garner Educational Foundation (GEF) teamed together for the ninth annual Garner Storytelling Festival.
The festival hosted professional speakers including Willa Brigham, an Emmy award winner, Timmy and Susana Abell, John Golden and Cyndi Bailey Morgan. After the professional storytellers finished, the students from 11 different schools took the stage and told their stories.
“The kids get a chance to tell a story, express themselves and gain confidence,” Media and Technology chair for the Garner Educational Foundation Margret Bingham said. “It helps promote creativity.”
While the students settled in on the stage and told their stories with a heart full of passion there was, however, something more than just a story being told. There was a sort of confidence, a sort of success building for a lifetime.
“Getting comfortable prepares them for success in life,” Susan Adams, youth services supervisor for the Southeast Regional Library, said.
Mindy King, the media coordinator at Vance Elementary school, said that students’ confidence with performing on stage “will definitely help them with public speaking skills in the future, getting up in front of people and knowing that they don’t have to be afraid of their peers, that they can get up and be who they are and do what they love to do. People will accept that, and not only accept that, they will applaud it.”
Breanna Jernigan, a fifth grader at Vance said, “You get a chance to go in front of people and perform and shine.I think the reason most of us have confidence in ourselves and for all of our lives is because of our teacher Mrs. King,” Jernigan said.
Subjects Covered: education, storytelling festival