Like You Children's Film Festival 2025

This experience marked my 2nd day at the 2025 Children's Film Festival, an event that has been a privilege and a learning experience. My role today was to work as promoter at the front door. This role can be very intimidating: there can easily be confrontation since people usually do not enjoy the "sales person" mentality. Rejection is hard and this role requires a lot of it. However, talking to people is my specialty so I was readily on board. I set up at the front doors next to this security guard named Nelson. He was an older gentleman with a warm smile and an almost family-like energy. Talking to him felt like I was talking to my grandpa after a long day of work. Throughout the whole shift, he kept me company. We talked about family, retirement plans, career choices, the whole nine yards. My favorite people to talk to are older people. They are filled with so much knowledge and life. They have lived through so many hardships and have grown and reflected. They have hard outer shells given to them by life, but internally they are flowing with passion and liveliness. He was a doll and really fun to talk to. As a promoter I was able to witness whether the previous promoting had been working and the results were initially negative with hopeful outcomes. It was clear that people had not been made aware of this event. It its defense, this was the first year this event had been hosted. However, when people were made aware, they were excited to take their children. It is evident that people want these community building events. People are desperate for community. For a Sunday, the turnout was surprising large. The same amount of people, if not more, came out in support of the event. Children were running rampant, enamored by all of the activities. I felt like I was really helping the event out that day. This day was calmer than the former but it was also successful. I am really proud of the work me and everyone else did to make this event possible. I truly do believe that events like these are necessary in the development and facilitation of our community. I love Memphis, always have and always will regardless of what others think. This city has been good to me and I want to make it the best it can be. Events like these bring not only money to the city, but creative expression. Memphis is the music city. It is a city of culture. Events like these remind us of that fact. I hope that this event becomes celebrated annually and that others follow.