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Season of Hope: East County Kids News continues to teach life lessons

Students continue newscast after return to school
EC Kids News Coronavirus.png
Posted at 6:05 AM, Dec 23, 2020
and last updated 2020-12-23 10:38:58-05

EL CAJON, Calif. (KGTV) - Over the course of the Pandemic, sisters Berlin and Bristol Dixon kept their favorite extra-curricular activity going strong. The two created "East County Kids News" as a way to keep doing school news, even while school was canceled.

When in-person learning resumed in the fall, the girls went their separate ways, with Berlin going to Los Coches Creek Middle School and Bristol at WD Hall Elementary. But they took what they learned from EC Kids News and used it to make their school newscasts better.

"I feel like we have a lot more resources," says Berlin. "We learned how to work with computers a lot more ever break. So, when we returned, we knew a lot more about iMovie and all the stuff you need to know for broadcast."

But, beyond the technical improvements they brought back to campus, the girls say they learned how important their work had been to keep the community together.

"I have learned that kids are resilient and they can go above and beyond," says Bristol. "And that when you want something you can go for it."

"It's really taught us how amazing our community is," says Berlin. "Also that it's really important to stay connected with everyone, because it has been a rough time but when we connect it makes that rough time not as hard."

Their efforts have impressed teachers at both schools.

"For them to find the silver lining in the cloud is is inspiring to to everyone," says Laura Albright, a teacher at WD Hall. "You always set your expectation high for your students, but they totally surpassed anything we could think of."

The only downside to returning to campus is losing the chance to co-anchor as sisters. But Berlin and Bristol say they may do some special reports for EC Kids News over the holiday break to work together again.