Children’s Media Project (CMP) is a non-profit arts and education organization with a history of empowering “at-risk” youth through the media arts. CMP believes in making a social investment for community transformation by providing access to the skills and tools necessary for creation and appreciation of media as art, as education, and as entrepreneurship. CMP’s programs encourage youth to not only explore the world around them, but to also be active participants. CMP provides workshops, programs, and projects for youth, artists, and educators that teach critical viewing of the media, that encourage youth to be creatively engaged in using the media to deliver important messages, and that offer employment and growth opportunities for youth.

Come stop by to say hello or call to set up a visit for you and your students!

Children's Media Project
Carriage House, Second Floor
42 Catharine Street
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601

Phone: (845) 485-4480
Fax: (845) 485-4483

Here's who you might meet when you stop by for a visit...

Nicole Fenichel-Hewitt - Executive Director

Nicole has used her degree in Professional and Technical Communication for a diverse range of work. As a community organizer on Long Island, Nicole led campaigns for affordable housing, transportation reform, and health care access. Since then, she headed several exciting independent publishing endeavors, including X-press magazine, The Movement magazine, and Kids’ Beat magazine, a Hudson Valley magazine written by and for kids. Her most recent years were spent as the Director of Communication and Individual Donor Relations at Women’s Studio Workshop, an Ulster County arts organization; and birthing and raising her two children. Now leading CMP, Nicole is putting her fundraising, networking and management skills to work. As Executive Director, she is responsible for organization-wide leadership and direction, leading the Curriculum Development and teaching team, fund raising and general community outreach.

Mary Ellen Iatropoulos, MA - Director of Education

Mary Ellen Iatropoulos, MA, MPS is Director of Education for Children’s Media Project, where she develops media-rich interdisciplinary curriculum and coordinates in-school and after-school media programs , as well as teaches classes for children and teens in critical media literacy, writing, zine-making, radio production, filmmaking, and critical thinking. She holds Master’s degrees in English and Multicultural/Humanistic Education and her research interests include popular culture/media studies, postcolonial and critical race theory, digital/emerging literacies and nineteenth-century American literature. She has presented at numerous educational and academic conferences, most recently Slayage, the biennial academic conference of the Whedon Studies Association (where her presentation won the prestigious Mr. Pointy Award for Best Paper of the Conference). Her writing has been published in the Southwest Journal of Cultures and several edited volumes of pop-cultural literary criticism, and she is co-editor of the volume Race and Ethnicity in the Works of Joss Whedon, forthcoming from McFarland Publishers in 2013.

Ryan Sullivan - Production House Producer and Media Educator

Hello, my name is Ryan and I have been teaching for the children's media project for almost 8 years. I started my career with CMP as a student, so my perspective is unique because I have been in the passenger and driver seat. I am a working artist with no formal background in arts education but I bring a real and raw view into art and teaching. Some of my strengths are teaching all ages and being able to work with all kinds of social and economical backgrounds. In my own time I enjoy watching media, painting, and making films.

Maria Marewski, M.A. - Founding Director

Maria Marewski, M.A. has been focused on youth and media, critical thinking and creativity since 1994 when she founded the Children's Media Project. Since that time she has been engaged in the education, exhibition and production of youth related media.

Marewski has developed and managed many projects that have youth and community development at its core. Using a multi-intelligence, holistic approach to learning, she had designed many hands-on workshops in media production and media literacy and collaborated with schools, community organizations, churches and libraries. She has taught at Vassar College, Hunter College, and the University of Maryland; has co-directed the summer Community Fellows Program at Vassar College; has programmed Youth Media Exhibition Programs of screenings, panels and workshops for the Hampton’s International Film Festival; has been a panelist on the selection committee of the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and has presented at numerous annual conferences including the Grantmakers in the Arts, the National Media Education Association, the Coalition for Essential Schools, and the International Conference on Practice and Professionalism.

Believing that “Entertainment is the most powerful educational force of any culture” (George Gerbner), Marewski has been focusing her attention on the production of high impact, youth engaging media. She has been the Executive Producer for numerous award winning educational media products: Smokescreens: From Tobacco Outrage to Media Activism, Please Stand Up Against (School) Violence, He Said, She Said,; Shadowhood, a 45 minute live action narrative and Hero’s Journey curriculum for Emerging Workers.

Do you want to volunteer with Children's Media Project? Click HERE for more information!