Ferndale Student Seeks Votes for Toyota Anti-Texting and Driving Contest

Ferndale Student Seeks Votes for Toyota Anti-Texting and Driving Contest
(Lara Mossa, April 18, 2019)
Ferndale, MI –  Dressed in yellow and strumming a happy-faced ukulele, Adelaide Wilson sang “Put That Phone Away.”
Wilson created the one-minute video for the Toyota TeenDrive 365 Scholarship Contest. The light-hearted film encourages drivers to put down their phones and prevent distractions. The clip is in the top 10 for finalists out of 1,200 submissions across the United Sates.
Viewers can help her win the $5,000 prize by voting on the website http://www.teendrive365inschool.com/vote. You can vote once a day until April 29.
“My mom told me, because she got the message first,” said Wilson, who discovered she was a finalist in March. “I was just overjoyed. It was such a great opportunity to promote a strong message.”
Wilson, 17, and a senior at Ferndale High School made the video with help from her friends Nico Pryde and Alexis Callicoatte. They used props with pictures of phones and seatbelts.
Wilson wrote the song and said she has been in involved in filmmaking since she was 12 years old.
“It’s really important to make films that will really affect people and make them think – even if it’s just for a little bit,” she said.
Wilson has made several films including a short piece that was selected for a New York City-based festival. She has made a six-part web series and is currently working on a 17-minute short film set in the 1980s. She also has helped film talent shows along with business and promotional videos. In addition, she has mentored and shadowed on different sets locally and out of state.
The scholarship would help Wilson attend Columbia College Chicago in the fall and study filmmaking. She wants to be a filmmaker and director.
“I really like reaching out and sharing different stories to different audiences,” she said. “I like making stories for teens and created by teens…Making stories that make people think is pretty sweet.”
Besides filmmaking, Wilson is on the varsity girls’ soccer team; is president of the Thespian Society at her school; is a member of the National Honor Society; and is the leader of an a capella group called The Lady Legatos.
“I think that it’s very important to promote driving safely,” she said. “I especially thought it was really important to create a video that would really stick with people. That’s why I made the song. It would catch in people’s heads before they would drive distracted.”
Vote at http://www.teendrive365inschool.com/vote.

Save this post to PDFPrint this post