Since July, I’ve been working with a group of young moms on a short film called “Teen Moms Have a Future”. They were interested in showing a positive and forward-looking image of young moms in response to the images portrayed in shows such as MTV’s “Teen Mom”. These women all became pregnant under very different circumstances and I think one of the strengths of the project is getting the general public to understand (as one mom puts it in the film) “not every teen mom just goes and hangs out at a party and gets pregnant”. This group of young women are driven to disrupt the statistics that show teen moms are more likely to receive government assistance, less likely to finish high school, and less likely to attend college. In fact, all five women featured in the film have now finished high school and four of them are enrolled in a community college or 4-year school. They are a great group and I am so honored to have worked with them to produce this film!

We were joined in this project by a fantastic group of volunteers and non-profit leaders, including Valerie Aschbacher of Madonna’s Center, Beth Ragel of the City of Milwaukie, our invaluable editor Benjamin Meader and all the volunteers that made the movie premiere a success.

You can view the trailer here.

You can see write-ups of the project in the Clackamas Review, the Oregonian, and the artMOB website.

The project was a partnership between the City of Milwaukie artMOB, the Madonna’s Center, and was funded by a grant from the Clackamas Cultural Coalition.