Community Champions: KITS Film Awards

Roll out the blue carpet! It was the KITS Film Awards for youth impacted by foster care and others.

The event "honored the creative achievements of young filmmakers, both impacted by foster care and other opportunity youth."

Tige Charity founded the nonprofit Kids in the Spotlight (KITS), which recently hosted its 13th annual KITS film awards.

This year, Kids in the Spotlight opened a production studio in Van Nuys for their own use, and for industry rental. There's an apartment. Need a classroom setting for a shoot? Spaces like a courtroom and a jail cell help bring powerful stories to life.

Nathanial Patterson and two other former foster youth, for example, are working on a feature documentary investigating overmedication in the foster care system.

It's called Recovering Innocence.

The KITS Film Awards were held at Paramount Studios this year. Actor Ty Burrell of the tremendously successful sitcom Modern Family has been a longtime KITS VIP.

Per KITS, it is "best known for its flagship Script-to-Screen program, Kids In The Spotlight serves opportunity youth ages 12-24 who write, cast, and star in their original short films, which are directed and produced by industry professionals."

Among the honorees, Randal Wells was in foster care and is the host of the Foster Tales Podcast.

Awards were presented by entertainment luminaries including Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Zach King, Wendy Raquel Robinson and James Pickens, Jr.

Community Champions: Kids in the Spotlight (KITS)

KITS is a "Script-to-Screen program teaches youth in foster care to write, cast, & star in their own short films; leading to healing, growth, & viable employment."

In FOX 11's Community Champions, we showcased grant recipients leading up to Super Bowl 2022 in Los Angeles. For more information on the Super Bowl LVI Legacy Program and the selected nonprofit organizations, click here.