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| 2016 I Want to be an Ambassador! Camp Director, Susan Brozek Scott |
by Beth Dolinar
It would be difficult to watch a parade
marching by without seeing the work of Susan Brozek Scott.
In her roles as producer, organizer and, yes, marcher, Susan has left her mark
on parade routes all around the Pittsburgh area.
Susan, who will serve as Director of
Luminari’s I Want to be an Ambassador!
Camp for summer 2016, has a rich background of experience working with young
people and the community. For much of her career, Susan was a reporter and
producer for television stations in Pittsburgh and other cities. Eventually she
landed at Pittsburgh’s WPXI-TV where, for 13 years, she produced the broadcast
of the annual “Celebrate the Seasons” parade. If you’ve ever watched the
festivities, you were seeing Susan’s keen talent for painting vivid stories for
television.
It’s no surprise, then, that her next
endeavor would lead to parade routes, too. In 2008, Susan began
“Afterschool Buddy, Inc.,” a children’s multimedia programming and production
corporation. The cornerstone of the company is a children’s performance group—a
colorful troupe of costumed characters and talented kids—which performs songs,
dances and skits at community events and, yes, parades around the area. The
smiling character in the ridiculous hat? That’s Aunt Junk, the character played
by none other than Susan herself. That hat is big, and in summer it’s hot, but
it’s all part of Susan’s effort to connect with the kids.
“I don’t have my own children,” said Susan.
“I felt that this was a way to pay it forward. I think we can teach them things
by telling stories in entertaining ways.”
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| Afterschool Buddy Mascots |
The mission of “Afterschool Buddy” is
multi-faceted, and aims to broaden the perspectives of teens and pre-teens.
One teenager who has been with Susan since
the start of the company is Jason Starr, 17, a junior at Mars High School. He
has been a member of The Rainbow Kids, the “Aftershool Buddy” performing group,
and now works to help youngsters, both in and out of the performing group,
navigate the challenges of life. He credits his leader with preparing him for
that role.
“Susan is very patient,” said Jason. “She
helped me to grow as a teenager and as an individual.”
“We want to teach them life skills, like
goal setting, discipline and responsibility,” Susan said. “And teamwork, too.
All the kids want to be a star (in the performance group), and I’m old school
in that you have to have a firm foundation for your life, and learn that you
need others to accomplish your goals.”
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| WPXI Holiday Parade in November 2015. Afterschool Buddy and La Roche College partnered on the float. |
In that way, Susan’s mission for her
company aligns perfectly with Luminari’s mission of mind broadening, innovation
and cultural understanding. Her new role will allow her to extend her teaching
work beyond younger children to teenagers of middle and high school age.
“I’ve always been interested in connecting
the dots for people. I love the diplomacy of helping the kids appreciate the
diversity of our community.”
Susan is a Pittsburgher, through and
through. A native of Springdale, she earned a degree in Communications and
Rhetoric from the University of Pittsburgh. She’s married to the police chief
of Cheswick, Pa.
Susan will preside over the Ambassador camp, to be held June 14-22,
2016, part of which includes a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with leaders in
the diplomatic community.
Her goal for the camp is to help the teens
understand that a lot of divisions in our society can be bridged if people are
willing to go outside their comfort zone.
“People tend to live in their own space,”
Susan said. “They’re not always willing to venture outside of that. But teens
are at a very impressionable age. They are very open to influences, and I want
to help them move outside their comfort zones.”
At the Ambassador
camp, the goals will be for the teenage students to learn about the lives
and perspectives of people from other worlds and other cultures. As she
prepares the invigorating slate of activities for the Ambassador camp, Susan
finds herself becoming more and more excited about the possibilities the
students will face.
“I’ll enjoy seeing the kids learn and be
exposed to all the different cultures and lives and ideas of the people they’ll
meet,” she said. “I love diplomacy.”
***
Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.
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