Show Us (and Your State's Leaders) How You're Helping the Bay in the Bay Program's First-Ever "Local Action Video Showcase"

Are you doing your part to help your local river, stream, or the Chesapeake Bay in your community? Is your local watershed group, school group, community or municipality restoring a shoreline, replacing a parking lot with porous pavement, planting rain gardens, holding cleanups or doing other restoration work to protect your local waterways? Show the Chesapeake Bay Program in our first-ever Local Action Video Showcase!

Grab your camera and send us a short video that shows what you’re doing in your community to help your local waterway or the Chesapeake Bay. We’ll use all the video submissions to create a collective video that highlights all the local work being done throughout the Bay watershed – from New York to Virginia, West Virginia to Delaware – to restore and protect the Bay and its many streams, creeks and rivers.

The collective video will be shown to representatives and elected officials from throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed – including Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia – during the annual Chesapeake Executive Council meeting on June 3. The Chesapeake Executive Council includes Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell and District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty.

Additionally, submitted videos will be included in a feature on the Chesapeake Bay Program's website in early June about local restoration work throughout the Bay watershed.

What you need to do:

Film a short (5 minutes or less) video showing how you or your group is helping the Bay or your local stream or river. We’re especially interested in examples of local action in urban areas, but videos of restoration and protection work from all types of communities will be accepted!

Make sure to begin your video by:

1. Introducing yourself and letting us know where you are located,
2. Telling us the name of the local waterway you’re working to protect.

Then show us examples of what you’re doing in your community. Have fun with this part – do something interesting or creative.

Here’s some other tips to help guide the creation of your video:

• Make sure to get shots of people interacting with the environment
• Feel free to interview active participants
• Don’t include any background music – we’ll add that in for the collaborative video
• You don’t need a fancy camera to make your video – a point-and-shoot camera or other small handheld video camera will do fine.

Check out this sample video for more ideas on what to include in your video:

Send a DVD of your video by May 14, 2010 to:

Chesapeake Bay Program
Local Action Video Showcase
410 Severn Avenue, Suite 109
Annapolis, Md. 21403

We can’t wait to see your videos!

*By submitting a video, you give the Chesapeake Bay Program the right to edit and use your footage in various formats. Any use of copyrighted or third-party material is prohibited and will not be knowingly accepted by the Chesapeake Bay Program.