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08/07/2007A for effortTeachers make strong showing among festival volunteers
Traverse City Film Festival box office manager Bryn Lynch leans on a barrier at the festival’s box office. Lynch teaches at Traverse City Central High School. TRAVERSE CITY — Pam Forton sat down in the conference room at the Traverse City Film Festival's headquarters in the old train depot. While she sat, volunteers ran in and out of the room with news of people waiting to speak with her on the phone, looking for materials and wanting to ask questions. "You kind of just start and you just keep going until you just can't go anymore,” Forton said. As the office manager of the film festival for a second year, Forton started work at the end of June and has been putting together the details of the festival ever since. Everything from printing schedules, to organizing volunteers, to supervising the more than 20 festival interns falls under Forton's jurisdiction. And that is just what she does on her summer vacation. Forton is a ninth grade math teacher at Traverse City East Junior High School and has volunteered with the festival since its beginning. "Because it's different, and because it's something I really enjoy and something I believe in, it's work, but it's not really work,” Forton said. In fact, Forton estimated that more than 50 teachers from around the area are volunteers for this year's festival. "When this time of year comes, and you can do this kind of stuff, and you don't have to worry about going to work the next day, everybody just sees this as a great opportunity to do something we don't get to do a lot living here,” Forton said. Festival box office manager Bryn Lynch is a Spanish teacher at Traverse City Central High School. She said that she spends about five weeks each summer working as long as 14 hours a day setting up the box office, training the staff and selling the tickets. During the festival she arrives at the box office around 8 a.m. and does not leave again until after 10 p.m. But she doesn't mind the hours. "Especially the week of the festival, it's part of my vacation because it's so busy, and I love the energy,” Lynch said. Some teachers are newcomers to the festival experience. Central Grade School teacher Deb Hissong never volunteered with the festival until a friend, also a teacher, encouraged her to do so this year. Now she works the box office and learned the mechanics of movie theater popcorn after a shortage of volunteers in the concession stands. "I think because (teachers) have summers free, and if we have children and they're older or they're busy, it's just a good opportunity to do something totally different and make a contribution too,” Hissong said. But once a teacher, always a teacher. And even though the film festival does not include desks, tests or cafeteria food, Forton said she can still see the parallels. "There's some similarities because of the interns this year, because I'm overseeing them this year, and there are some of the same issues,” Forton said. "…the difference though is that I don't have to prepare anything or grade anything so when I go home, I can just go home.”
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