OVERVIEW
The Our Unsung Heroes series is both an award series and a collection of oral/video histories. Each year, Our Unsung Heroes holds an annual awards celebration to publicly honor six members of our community and conducts in-depth video interviews with each, interviews that are then transcribed, indexed, and archived. From these longer interviews, short videos are created and presented at the celebration.
Community members are nominated by the public and the winners are chosen by a panel of judges. They are selected for overcoming hardship or making significant contributions to the community and who, just by being the people they are and leading the lives they lead, are an inspiration to the rest of us. We look beyond high-profile nominees to the “unsung heroes” among us. The series prioritizes diversity in all areas among the recipients, including gender, age, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and occupation.
Over time, a vibrant historical record of our community emerges and grows in value. Because the winners are chosen by the community, their stories represent us. The videos are both a reflection of ourselves and ambassadors to the outside world and to the future – they are the best of who we are and what we have to offer. By showcasing some of the most illustrious, interesting, and inspiring community members with a great variety of experiences, the Unsung Heroes series creates an ongoing collage of our area, an evolving snapshot of who we, as a community, are at our finest.
BACKGROUND
The series is inspired by the Local Hero Awards Series, presented annually for fourteen years by the Midpen Media Center in Palo Alto. The creator and host of that series, Louise Pencavel, brings her considerable experience to this project in the same role. The production team, including many dedicated volunteers, is drawn from the same talent pool that has created the Local Hero Award Series for many years.
SCOPE/PARTICIPANTS
The series is sponsored by a group of local organizations representing a rich diversity of people living or working in the Mid-Peninsula. We draw from key sectors of the community, including health, education, the environment, technology, government, and the arts. Each participating organization contributes its own interests, and skills and reaps the benefits of the whole series and the visibility associated with it.
