In a competition dominated by experienced seniors, Lake Ridge junior, Makenna Hennegan and sophomore, Kristen Laurie were just two of the few newer students in the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network competition. However, to their surprise they gained national recognition and won the Honorable Mention award for their documentary, A Good Home, at the C-SPAN competition at Ben Barber Career Academy.

C-SPAN is a public news and media publishing service that covers political news pertaining to Congress and Washington D.C.

“It was definitely surprising! I wasn’t expecting this to happen,” Laurie said.

The competitors were given the task to create a documentary over a topic that they wished the 2016 candidates for President would talk about. The duo worked hard together; Laurie skillfully put the video together while Hennegan managed the research.

“Some of the things I read were appalling,” Hennegan explained.

The topic the partners chose was over the foster care system. The documentary explicitly demonstrated the things that foster children go through and uncovered information that most people outside of the foster care system would not have known.

“There’s nothing that we can do but encourage the correct people to foster and review these people,” explained Hennegan.

The team plans to enter the competition again next year and hope to make it further and broaden their horizons and continue their path towards success.