NILES — A video produced by students at McKinley High School won the $2,500 grand prize in the Hope 360 Foundation’s inaugural Fentanyl Awareness Contest.

The two-minute video, which was created as part of Abbey Chieffo’s digital journalism class, has gained more than 500 views and 20 likes on the Niles McKinley High School Yearbook YouTube Channel.

“It was honestly just a relief,” Savanna Taylor, a former McKinley student featured in the video, said after finding out they won. “There was a lot of work put into that. We didn’t care as much about winning as much as we did about getting the story out there and having people learn.”

According to the Canfield-based foundation’s website, interested parties were required to make a social media post that included two facts about fentanyl, used the hashtag #iamHope360, and follow the foundation on social media.

All submissions were to be submitted prior to June 26, which is the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

Chieffo said her class was made aware of the contest by Niles Board of Education President Tony Perrone.

“We were told by Tony Perrone that there was this opportunity through Hope 360 Foundation to create a fentanyl awareness video,” Chieffo said. “When Tony sent that over — I have his son in class — we knew for sure we were going to do this and try to make it as big as it could be.”

Chieffo said entering the contest was partially inspired by a student in her class whose sibling died of a fentanyl overdose.

“He and his mom actually said they were familiar with the Hope 360 Foundation and that they were very helpful in helping them through that hard time,” Chieffo said.

FUNERAL SCENE

The video shows two students, played by Taylor and Sam Perrone, walking through a cemetery and talking, before Sam Perrone disappears out of the frame, prompting another student to ask Taylor, “What do you think you’re doing here?”

The video then shows the students at a funeral, placing flowers on a casket, prompting another student to say, “I never thought it would happen to us.”

Chieffo said the idea for the video’s story came from a scene from the early 2000s television show “Scrubs,” but most of her students had never seen the show.

“Before this, I actually had never seen it,” Taylor said. “That was something that Mrs. Chieffo brought up, and she kind of just explained it to us students, and then gave us the homework of going home to watch the episode, and understand it in depth.”

The writing, producing, acting and filming involved with the project was entirely done by the students in Chieffo’s class.

NOT HIGH-TECH

Taylor said the video took only one day to film, but took about a month to produce and edit.

The class did not have any high-tech equipment. Taylor said school iPads were used to film the clips.

The iMovie application was used to edit the videos together, and they had to resort to other resourceful methods to record audio.

“We didn’t have microphones, so we ended up using another students’ AirPods,” Taylor said. “We put one of each in both of our ears so that we had mics but could still hear ourselves. That was all stuff that we came up with together as a group.”

The class finished the video and submitted it to Hope 360 in early spring. Chieffo was notified in July that her class had won the grand prize of $2,500. As it had been a few months since her class had finished the video, finding out about the win came as a welcome surprise.

Chieffo said she hopes the prize money will go toward equipment upgrades for the digital journalism class.

“I hope to be able to use it for the class and for the kids to get some new iPads or even like some type of camera that we can use,” Chieffo said.

FIRST YEAR

Chieffo said this past school year was her first year teaching the digital journalism class as well as handling the high school yearbook.

She said the class has focused on teaching students the skills of digital journalism. Along with creating the video for the contest, students in the class published a monthly newspaper called McKinley High Headlines and used Instagram to share school and athletic news.

Chieffo said her class will continue to look for opportunities like the one presented by Hope 360.

“As far as contests go, I’m always looking to see if there’s anything out there for me or if there is any free money, grant money, that we can take advantage of,” she said.

Representatives from Hope 360 said they were encouraged by the submissions they received for the fentanyl awareness contest.

The foundation said more opportunities will be available in the future.

“We were just hoping and praying that our inaugural efforts could make even just one person think twice about a future decision,” said Renee Halfill, president / CEO of Main Street Therapy Partners and founder of the Hope 360 Foundation. “It’s been so rewarding to see the submissions and efforts these young people have put forth to help the cause.”

Taylor, who will begin her freshman year at Kent State University this fall, said the project helped her and her classmates better understand the opioid crisis.

She said that she thinks students who take the digital journalism class in the future would benefit from similar projects.

Mostly, Taylor and her classmates hope their video increases the awareness of the dangers of fentanyl and other illicit drugs.

“Everyone knows about fentanyl awareness and everything, but no one really talks about how little it takes to actually kill someone,” she said. “So going into that and learning also about that, it just developed our minds so much over the month of making this video without us even realizing.”