Classmates Use Friendship as Backbone for PSA Announcement

Zipporah Williams, Moriah Coleman, Cynthia Hernandez and Kelsey Gooden have been best friends for so long that they subconsciously sit and speak in a corresponding order. One that subliminally aligns with their self-entitled nickname, “ZMCK.”

The girls have been best friends since sixth grade, and it was recently that the teenagers had to look no further than each other for inspiration behind a recent “A” earning Public Service Announcement (PSA).

The girls, all students in Denise Parker’s 11^th grade AP English class, decided the PSA assignment was a great opportunity to highlight a topic they felt was extremely important, not only to high school students, but their own friendship as well.

Individuality.

“We wanted to focus on accepting each other for being different, and having each individual be OK with who they are,” Gooden said. “It’s easy to find yourself drifting away from who you really are or trying to conform to what everybody else is doing.”

“There’s a lot to get caught up in [in high school] and it’s hard not to,” Hernandez said.

While most students relaxed after the conclusion of their extracurricular activities, Williams, Coleman, Hernandez and Gooden spent time acting, filming and editing their PSA announcement for Mrs. Parker’s class.

The group was given the freedom to pursue local, national or topical issues and create a short PSA. The girls of “ZMCK” said they decided on individuality quickly and had a very specific message to deliver. 

“Each individual person in our PSA [played by the girls] said they won’t change and that they wouldn’t conform,” Gooden said. “We wanted the PSA to tell students ‘don’t be someone you’re not,’” added Hernandez.

While the group played characters in the PSA, the girls said the topic hit close to home for the group because each girl represents a different social category.

“There are very general stereotypes that each of us can fit, but that doesn’t mean that’s who we all are,” Gooden said.

The one-minute video took more than six hours to create according to the group, who also said they didn’t anticipate showing the video to the whole student body.

Their hard work may have earned the group of friends an “A” in Mrs. Parker’s AP English class, but it appeared the girls would have enjoyed the project even if they hadn’t received such high marks.