The locally produced reality television show Project Volunteer was presented with a Telly Award for social impact on Tuesday in New York City. Considered one of the greatest honors in the industry, the Telly Awards seek to highlight artistic and technical innovations across several media outlets.
Project Volunteer spotlights local and regional nonprofit organizations and the many volunteer opportunities they have available. Randy Lanham and Theresa Rowe co-host the show, which also features crew members Wayne Morris and Brian Synder.
While Lanham and his crew were ecstatic to receive the award, their ultimate goal is to encourage others to seek opportunities to volunteer within their community.
“I’ve seen that people want to help, but they need education and inspiration — that’s what we aim to provide,” he said. “It’s not about me, our organization, or the glory; we truly do this because we feel that God calls us all to serve.”
The show presently airs on KET KY, NRBTV, and Western Kentucky University’s network. Lanham is hopeful that the prestigious accomplishment will open more doors for them, specifically offering additional viewing opportunities.
“This is definitely a great honor. I just hope it opens more doors,” he said. “This award could set us apart from other shows being pitched. There is so much available to view now.”
The show initially began as Volunteer Owensboro five years ago and was only featured on Time Warner’s local channel eight. Following some success, KET KY acquired the show, and the group elected to change the name to VolunTour Kentucky to feature nonprofit organizations outside of the Owensboro community.
As the show continued to grow in popularity, Lanham added Rowe as a co-host prior to filming season two and rebranded again — this time arriving at Project Volunteer. The show was then picked up by NRTB TV which reaches over 45 million homes across the nation.
“The show idea came from me watching Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe and wondering why we couldn’t do the same thing with nonprofit organizations,” Lanham said. “I thought it would be nice to go in and find out all about them and their volunteer opportunities … walk in the shoes of real volunteers to show people exactly how it would be.”
All of season one can be viewed at projectvolunteer.org/, along with episode one of season two. Once the episodes run across all of the networks, Lanham says they will slowly begin releasing more on the website as well as YouTube and Facebook.
“We just want to educate and inspire as many people as possible to serve others in their community and beyond,” Lanham said. “We love to show people how fun it is to volunteer, but you also hear amazing testimonies from volunteers and the recipients of their care.”
