One of the myriad reasons we’re grateful for our full-time volunteers is their perseverance.
Because of logistical and budgetary limitations — including the fact that Nome, and all of the communities we serve, are removed from Alaska’s road system — our volunteer program asks its participants to serve a full year in Nome. Under normal circumstances, they remain in rural Alaska continuously for a full 365 days.
On occasion, however, we’re able to send them farther afield: whether to Fairbanks for our bishop’s ordination or, most recently, to Anchorage, where Francesca Fenzi and Jenn Ruckel traveled for a unique learning opportunity.
KNOM was the proud recipient, late last year, of an all-expenses-paid fellowship from the Alaska Press Club for a week of training in Anchorage. Held in early January 2015, the sessions were dedicated to working with data and representing it visually on the web.
In Anchorage, Jenn and Francesca (pictured at top) focused on expanding their already-deep acumen for reporting online, and it’s a skill set they’ll be putting to good use in an ongoing journalistic project they’re working on (with news director Matthew Smith) regarding alcohol abuse and housing issues in Nome and throughout our region.
To read more on Jenn and Francesca’s week away in the “big city” of Anchorage, see the recent personal posts from our volunteers (especially this one).
