Funding provided by: New Orleans Recreation & Culture Fund
Camp will be held July 14-25, 2025, from 9am-noon. Application deadline was Friday, April 25, 2025.
Camp is led by local educator and broadcasting veteran Mary Jackson.
In 2025, WYES hosted students from Frederick A. Douglass High School, Ben Franklin High School, Hahnville High School, New Harmony High, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Northshore High School, Riverdale High School and St. Augustine High School.
During the two weeks of WYES Digital Media Summer Camp the students experienced the following:
Week 1: The week kicked off with tours of WYES’ facilities and the students were able to sit down with WYES producer Peggy Scott Laborde, WYES media & technology Coordinator Calvin Barrett, WYES director of production and event services Tam Kady and WWLTV’s Brandon Walker.
Week 2: Campers had the chance to meet and chat with Chef Dook Chase on his kitchen set of DOOK CHASE: A CHEF’S JOURNEY airing in Spring 2026. Lucy Bustamante, Fox8’s morning news anchor, and Margaret Crosby, a freelance social media contributor to DOOK CHASE: A CHEF’S JOURNEY, shared valuable insight and practical tips for future careers in media. STEPPIN’ OUT host Peggy Scott Laborde, along with the show’s weekly theater critic Alan Smason, welcomed the students on set. Campers videoed the sweetest little duo—an adorable puppy and kitten, adoptable through Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO), which they will use to create social media posts.
Students continue to work on “Did You KnowLA?” segments which will be featured on WYES’ YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@wyestv
