NASHVILLE, TN – Nashvillians celebrate an exciting event centered around building up our fellow citizens today, as the new Nashville PBS show The Good In Us is holding a live taping during the A Slice of Community event tonight at 7 pm at Nashville PBS, 161 Rains Avenue. The event is free, though reservations are needed, and taping will begin promptly at 8 pm. Host and producer Jerome Moore said, as someone who has done boots-on-the-ground work not only in his hometown of Nashville but also abroad with the Peace Corps in Paraguay and with Nongovernmental Organizations in Costa Rica, China, and the Philippines, announcing this kind of show for Nashville felt good. Moore said he will also be joined by guests who are the subjects of the episodes themselves, each of who are driving dynamic solutions dedicated to improving our Nashville community.
Moore said after identifying the local community initiatives he wanted to cover, connecting with representatives in their organizations was easy since he was already so embedded in the community through his activity with local nonprofit work, community organizing, and community events. He said Nashville has a lot of people doing good work within it, and that the hard part of organizing the show ended up being choosing who to focus on. “So, [we] had to narrow it down and come up with a good five organizations and people and projects that I felt like really kind of did that best job of capsule-izing Nashville the best way I could and the most diverse way as well.”
Moore said he is expecting about 200 people for the event and that it will provide an excellent opportunity to bring Nashville’s community together and take the temperature of how The Good In Us will land with local audiences. Additional panelists will include I Read, I Lead, Co-chair’s Ashford Hughes Sr. and Lonnell Matthews, Five Points Pizza owner David Timan, Voces de Nashville president Beatriz Ordaz Remirez, New Beginnings Center president & CEO Tash Weddle, and Harvest Hands & Humphreys Street Co-founder and & CEO Brian Hicks.
Moore said funding for the show came from a Corporation of Public Broadcasting grant, which said they wanted PBS affiliates to focus on creating a show that focuses on volunteerism, acts of service, and community heroes. It was at this point Moore said he was attached to the project as a natural fit given his general background as well as his experience in being a host and public affairs producer at PBS.
Moore said The Good In Us was inspired by the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs hosted by Mike Rowe, as he wanted to show the day-to-day tough work that volunteers are doing to better their communities. Moore said the show gave him an opportunity to shoot in a signature way using a gimbal, as well as selecting the right shooter, Kevin Berstein, and photography production through Jordan Johnson.
Moore said the event itself will feature pizza from both Slim and Huskies and Five Points Pizza, who are both sponsors of the event. Moore said there will also be a Q&A at the end of the event where the audience will be able to ask their questions. Moore said the entirety of this event will be broadcast on News Channel 8, PBS, and live streaming on YouTube.