FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 7, 2007
CONTACT:  Bobbie Fisher, Director of Corporate Communications, 757.889.9107

WHRO TV15 TO AIR DOCUMENTARY ON HOLOCAUST OBSERVANCE
Paper Clips Chronicles Tennessee Middle School Experiment

NORFOLK:  WHRO TV, public television for Hampton Roads at Channel 15, will air a special documentary on May 17, 2007, from 9:00 to 10:30pm.  Paper Clips tells the story of an experiment conducted in the small rural community of Whitwell, Tennessee.  Whitwell’s population is almost exclusively white and Christian.  In 1998, the children of Whitwell Middle School took on a project, launched out of their principal's desire to help her students open their eyes to the diversity of the world beyond their insulated valley. What happened would change the students, their teachers, their families and the entire town forever… and eventually open hearts and minds around the world.

Paper Clips is the moving and inspiring documentary that captures how these students responded to lessons about the Holocaust - with a promise to honor every lost soul by collecting one paper clip for each individual exterminated by the Nazis. Despite the fact that they had previously been unaware of and unfamiliar with the Holocaust, their dedication was absolute. The amazing result, a memorial railcar filled with 11 million paper clips (representing 6 million Jews and 5 million gypsies, homosexuals and other victims of the Holocaust), stands permanently in their schoolyard, an unforgettable lesson of how a group of committed children and educators can change the world one classroom at a time.

Paper Clips, presented by One Clip At A Time HMA, is a production of The Johnson Group, in association with Miramax Films and Ergo Entertainment.
 
Broadcast of Paper Clips on WHRO TV15 is made possible in part through The Strelitz Family Memorial Program Fund in the WHRO Endowment.