Music, TV students team to make DVD for troops

Memorial School students Cristina Joule and Paige Nielsen send a message to the troops while Spotswood High School student Nicholas Adornati works the camera.

SPOTSWOOD - Students at Memorial Middle School and Spotswood High School teamed up recently to create a DVD that will be shipped to troops overseas.

The sixth-grade music class at Memorial performed patriotic songs and offered messages of encouragement on the DVD. In turn, students from the TV II program at Spotswood High School handled the filming and editing.

Copies of the DVD will be sent to soldiers who graduated from Spotswood High School and are currently serving in the military. It will also be sent to members of the U.S. Armed Forces known by or related to staff and students in the Spotswood schools.

Music teacher Barbara Cottrell first thought of the idea when listening to her sixth-grade music class sing "God Bless the USA." The song, she said, has always touched her, and their rendition was so heartfelt she thought it might touch the troops, who "truly need to know we care about what they are sacrificing to preserve the freedom we enjoy."

Cottrell asked Andrew Zaborney, teacher of the TV and radio programs at Spotswood High School, if he would like to get involved, and he quickly jumped on board. Tom Weaver, principal at Memorial, provided the blank DVDs and money for postage.

The songs were taped over two weeks earlier this month, and were then being edited and copied by the students. The sixth-graders will get a chance to view the editing process, giving them a sneak preview of the course they may take when they get to high school.

Cottrell is in the process of collecting names and addresses of military personnel, and once the copies are made, they will be shipped out.