Call Me Amaesing A Niche of Tasks and Inspiration

This is a late post (as all my posts are). About two weeks ago, the interns and some employees volunteered our time at the WTTW station, Chicagoland's local PBS television station. I'm a huge fan of PBS, grown up watching this station my whole life, and support the educational mission and their strive to make learning interesting.

As a kid, Saturday afternoons included recording cooking shows on VHS - such as Jacque Pepin on French cooking, Julia Child with her weekly guests on baking and pastries, Rick Bayless with his Mexican influenced dishes, and being awed by Jacque Torres' fascinating chocolate towers. PBS also inspired me artistically, with shows like Donna's Day, Beads Bobbles and Jewels, to even simple crafts that they had on Zoom. After I would record these shows, I'd spend the rest of the weekday watching them, over and over again.

So being able to visit the station, be a part of this telethon, and then receive tour of the building with Geoffrey Baer himself afterwards was awesome. We were told to be there at 6:15, but due to traffic we arrived around 6:30, but the program didn't start till about 8, we even had time to head downstairs to eat a free dinner in the cafeteria. About 7pm we walked to the room where the telethon was going to be filmed.

"Everyone find a seat and we'll wait for the other group of volunteers before we start the training session"

Here's me and Dana trying to look like pro-telemarketers. Each station had their own computer, keyboard, phone, and headset.


There's Geoffrey Baer setting up and getting ready to be broadcast live in-between sessions of playing "Chicago's Lakefront" - a WTTW series of Chicago history told in fascinating parts.



Working hard answering calls. Ok, I lied. This was taken during break while we had about 15 minutes in-between calling sessions.
Our group picture post-telethon


After the telethon ended - roughly 10pm- Geofrrey Baer gave us a tour of the station, showing us the recording room, different stages and sets, and even pulled out this heavy antique bicycle he's filming for the next recorded Chicago segment called "Biking the Boulevards". This was one of the last pit stops, the set where they flim "Chicago Tonight", a nightly news segment. What a great way to end up the night! Hope you call in and support your local PBS station!