A C-SPAN StudentCam Assembly was held  in the library annex on June 10, 2015 to honor Cherry Hill East student Madeline Bowne (’16) for winning second place in C-SPAN’s national StudentCam competition.

C-SPAN’s national StudentCam competition is a competition in which kids from all around the county submit a 5-7 minute video documentary about issues that affect the community or nation. This year over 2,200 documentaries were submitted by over 5,000 kids. Among these kids was Bowne, who submitted a documentary about the student debt crisis. Bowne, who has entered the competition every year since her sixth grade, won a prize for the fifth time in a row

The assembly commenced with a representative from C-SPAN explaining the principles and goals of C-SPAN. The representative explained C-SPAN’s goal to be unbiased in reporting the news. Bowne then talked to the audience about her learning experience in making the documentary.

Bowne said “it kind of opened my eyes a little bit to the issue of the student loan debt crisis, because before…I knew that it was a big consideration of going to college… but [this documentary] opened my eyes to how significant the issue is”

Bowne’s documentary was then shown to the audience, after which Bowne was awarded a check for her second place prize. After Bowne received her prize, audience members were invited to tour the C-SPAN bus, which has an interactive multi-media learning center inside.