Cierra Lemott 
A time was had!
As the summer program is ramping up and wrapping up, True Star visited Adobe’s Chicago office for our yearly True Star Adobe Day.
Breaking off into teams, True Star members were challenged to create a piece of promotional material for the From The ‘Go Fest, True Star’s annual festival. Options for the promo include infographics, reels, skits and more.
All the participants were able to put their media skills to use and create different pitches and plans to kick off the creative process. After an hour and a half of brainstorming, editing, and content creation, all teams presented their promo piece to the other students and staff, and explained how they used the tools in Adobe’s Express app to create their end product.
“Today, I did a reel with a group of people. My favorite part was working with my group because we all worked well together,” said Kenji Corbin, a member of the video production team.
The presentation of what all the students had created was an incredible moment. A lot of us had been placed in groups with people we had never met before, adding another element of difficulty to a task that already wasn’t particularly easy. But seeing the different ways everyone approached the project and how they met all of the criteria was interesting and inspiring.
Of the nine teams, there were three winners of first, second and third place who received Adobe merch as prizes, including a free year of premium Adobe for the competition champs. These first-place winners had their video posted to the True Star and From the ‘Go Fest Instagram accounts.
Adobe fully supports True Star’s mission to provide opportunities for underserved communities as their mission aligns. According to Adobe’s About page, they are committed to providing a platform for all to use as a creative outlet and encourage “the responsible use of technology for the good of society.”
Our host for the day was Gil Jimenez, a principal client partner at Adobe and a True Star board member. His hope was to provide a memorable experience for True Star participants, and he did. “When I was a kid on the south side and West Side of Chicago, I didn’t have opportunities like this to see businesses outside of what a lot of people in my neighborhood were doing, which was policeman, fireman or manual jobs. I’m hoping that [the students] can see what it’s like to work in a corporate environment.” Jimenez added. “I’m really excited that everyone came here. I wish I had opportunities like this, so I hope it was valuable for folks and that they were able to get something out of it.”
We thoroughly enjoyed our time at Adobe and getting the chance to collaborate with our peers. “My favorite part would probably be watching everybody’s videos and everything they made, the infographics that everybody came up with. It was pretty cool to see everybody’s creative minds and how they all came together from the different parts of the groups to make one nice thing,” said Chris Thomas, a member of the podcasting team at South Shore. His group made a skit to promote the upcoming From The ‘Go Fest.
Thank you to Adobe for having us! We look forward to the next True Star Adobe Day.
By Cierra Lemott, Columbia College Chicago Alumni
Instagram: @cece.kodak / @kodakscamera
X: @LemottCierra
*Da’Jae Allen contributed to this article.
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