The rooms at Hopeworks were supercharged with energy for the entire week of March 12th as six trainees took place in the first ever Hopeworks Digital Storytelling  Project.  Ashley Garibay, Yvette Reyes, Manuel Zapata, Angel Rodriguez, Danny Castelan and Dennis Thomas all wrote, narrated, produced and edited videos that tell the stories of important events in their lives.  Leigh Anne Purnell and Sean Dougherty led the group through a week that started with trainees brainstorming story ideas.  Hopeworks went quiet on Tuesday as trainees spread out throughout the building as they wrote, re-wrote, edited and polished their personal narratives.  Then Hopeworks began to rock.  Youth recorded narration tracks, scanned pictures, and made final decisions on images for their video.  On Thursday, youth selected music tracks, inserted video effects and tweaked their nearly completed video.  Finally, titles and credits were inserted into the final products.  The results: AMAZING! “I learned a lot putting my own story down on paper and then video,“ said Dennis Thomas, “but I learned just as much from watching everyone else’s videos too.”  Some of the themes: Struggle, Opportunity, Hope and Stereotypes.  “I don’t know about everyone else but I can’t wait until we show them to an audience,” said Manny Zapata.