There is no film being made about the teeth of Gullah Geechee people. Not about the generations of families on the Sea Islands who have had no access to a dentist. Not about the oral health disparities that follow the same map as every other disparity in the Lowcountry redlining, displacement, poverty engineered by policy. Nobody is telling that story on screen. I intend to be one of the first. Side Tooth is a documentary about oral health access in Charleston, South Carolina, specifically about the patterns of untreated dental disease in communities where preventative care has historically been hard to reach. Through intimate interviews with Charleston residents, the film explores what it means to live with dental pain as a background condition, how people navigate a healthcare system with significant gaps, and what it would look like to close those gaps from the inside. I am making this film from two directions simultaneously. I am a cultural educator and documentary filmmaker who has lived and worked in North Charleston for years, building relationships with the communities I want to portray with care and accuracy. I am also a pre-dental hygiene student at Trident Technical College, completing the prerequisites I need to enter a clinical program and eventually practice in the same neighborhoods where I am filming. For me, Side Tooth is an extension of my healthcare career as it is part of the same commitment, expressed through a different tool, storytelling. The specific production needs this scholarship would support include equipment for field interviews across Charleston's neighborhoods, transportation costs, and post-production editing. I am an independent filmmaker with no institutional backing. The impact I hope to achieve is simple but urgent: when people see this film, they should understand that a Gullah Geechee grandmother who has never seen a dentist is not the result of personal failure. She is the result of a system designed to exclude her. And when pre-dental students, dental hygienists, and healthcare administrators see this film, I want them to feel the weight of that and ask what they are going to do about it. Oral health is the entry point to overall health. Untreated decay becomes infection. Infection becomes systemic illness. Communities without access to preventative dental care carry a burden that compounds across generations and Gullah Geechee communities have carried it long enough. This scholarship will bring that story to screen. And when I finish my dental hygiene degree and return to serve this community clinically, I will bring the film with me because the people who need care most deserve to see themselves reflected in the person holding the instrument.

Katelyn Page Sunday, November 7th Title: Debtors Prison On August 3rd, 2021 my mom was sentenced to debtors prison in Charleston County SC. This has impacted me and our family in so many ways. I thought debtors prison was abolished, so I had no idea people can still be sent to jail over a debt especially when this practice criminalizes people for being poor. It's going on four months since my mom been sitting in jail and we pray she returns home in one piece. There are a lot of injustices in my city. A man named Jamal was recently killed by guards at this jail and since my mom been in there, she has witnessed two women commit suicide and another woman overdose. The disregard for my mom and the humanity of people incarcerated motivated me to create this website www.enddebtorsprisonnow.org. To find support that will free my mom and abolish this unconstitutional practice of debtors prison that unjustly targets the BIPOC community. Before this happened I was focusing on finishing my bachelor's degree in Business Management and my certification in Holistic Nutrition. It has been extremely hard for me to focus on just school with my mom incarcerated but I am still pushing through and trying my best to stay strong for my family that's depending on me. This experienced shaped me in ways that I didn't know was possible. Since this happened to my mom, I started doing more research on mass incarceration, systematic racism and racial equity. I realize that racism is a system that is built into the fabric of institutions. I started holding anti racist conversations in my city. I believe we are stronger together than separated. During these conversations, I discovered that debtor’s prison disproportionately impacts the BIPOC community but anyone who is poor can also be tangled up in this web of mass incarceration. Someone has to show that these unjustly still exist, and it has fallen upon me to do so. My goal is to open up a intergenerational school that is built on racial equity, healing and community development. I will start with prek and then add more grades as we grow. My target audience will be families impacted by mass incarceration. Seeing the outcome of this situation is how I'm overcoming this adversity.