American History Movie Raises Money for Wounded Warrior Project

Students in Oak Forest High School American History teacher Mike Brown’s and John Elifson’s class don’t expect to be making a movie their fourth quarter of school, but when they find out about the project they really throw their heart and soul into it.

This year's Vietnam War Movie Project, entitled Traveling Soldier, was another smashing success. One of the reasons the movie is such a success is that Mr. Brown and Mr. Elifson use this as a way for their 140 student participants to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project. Students like that they are helping a worthy cause.

This is the fourth year that the Brown/Elifson classes have made a movie to raise money for Wounded Warrior. In 2014 and 2015 students adapted parts from the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. In 2014, The Sweetheart From the Song Tra Bong raised just over $600. In 2015, A True War Story raised just over $1026. Last year students wrote their own screenplay entitled, The Color of Blood, that raised $1300. This year the goal was to increase our donation to $1500; however, students this year far surpassed that goal, raising $1800 for the Wounded Warriors!

On May 19, the current year’s movie Traveling Soldier had its premiere and was shown to 651 students from English classes throughout the school day.

Traveling Soldier is the story of four different soldiers from different walks of life. Oak Forest High School students Luke Sajewski, Broderick Bowman, Tristan Ramos and Nick Dwyer played the role of the main soldier characters. These soldiers left loved ones behind and headed to Vietnam where their paths intersect and they become involved in a mission together. The main characters they left behind were played by Oak Forest High School students Delaney Barnes, Destiny Watson, Kayla Stawoney, Hailey Esparza and Vita Olivo. The video has a very sad ending.

The writers of the screenplay were Abby Smith, Julian Concha, Lana Steffan, Matt Davis and Camille Glenn. Most of the students in Brown/Elifson’s classes had parts in the movie or behind the scenes promoting, editing, or working on production on the movie.

Mr. Brown said, “We would like to thank all of the students for their support, and the English department for their efforts to make Vietnam War Movie Day such a success.”

The video can be found here: https://youtu.be/Nsk9dKcXkWI