Augustana College sophomore Sawyer Carver now has a short documentary available on Roku. The documentary, “Rock Island Change Maker,” highlights The Atlas Collective, a small Moline business at 1801 5th Ave., and shows how a passionate local entrepreneur is shaping the Quad Cities creative economy.
As a freshman, Carver worked on the documentary as part of a team during their March 2025 internship with Fresh Films in Rock Island, a national organization that teaches youth and young adults the fundamentals of filmmaking.
The project was part of Roku’s “Change Makers” series, a partnership between the platform and Fresh Films that spotlights everyday people creating meaningful change in their communities. After competing against 20 other teams for the fourth and final season of seven episodes (each between four and five-and-a-half minutes), Carver’s team was selected.
“She’s so good,” Kelli Feigley, Fresh Films’ managing director, said recently. “She’s a firecracker.”
A Moline High alum and Augie film major, Carver served as a videographer on the project (four on the crew total), helping capture interviews and B-roll footage for the documentary. Now, as a second-year student, Carver said the experience provided valuable hands-on training and industry connections early in their college career.
“When I found out we were going to work with Roku, I was shocked that I had that opportunity,” Carver said. “I had never heard of Fresh Films before I found them on Indeed, but stepping into that internship felt like a miracle. After that, they shot a feature film over the summer and I had the opportunity to work as a production assistant.”
That summer 2025 project was “Groundhog Gary: Six More Weeks,” a feature family film shot in Rock Island.
Through the Roku internship, Carver gained experience in professional video production, from filming and collaborating with a production team to understanding the workflow behind documentary storytelling.
Making change and a difference
Four years ago, Fresh Films started partnering with Roku, and the Change Makers program – all produced by Fresh Films -- was designed to “give youth a platform for telling stories about change that is happening in their communities and really highlight those change makers in their communities and give them ultimately a chance for distribution on the Roku Channel,” Kelsey Conley, director of programs for Fresh Films, said recently.
The Atlas Collective film was the only one of 28 episodes (over four seasons) shot in the Quad Cities. Fresh Films works with students in 34 locations around the country and all students had the opportunity to participate in this project.
“The selection essentially came from the Roku team where all of the students at those 34 sites created a video to be put up for consideration to be on the Roku channel,” Conley said. “And the Roku team ultimately selects their top seven from each of the four years.”
The Season 4 episodes premiered on Jan. 21, 2026, and are free to stream on Roku HERE.
While all the other 27 Roku shorts were made by high school students in the Fresh Films program, the Atlas film was made by its accelerated program, which is open to people age 18 to 29, Conley said.
“There was a group of about 12 students who were part of that program, and they broke into two separate production teams,” she said. “And then within their production team, they ultimately do all of the concept development -- they think through who they want to feature as their change maker, then they come up with all of the interview questions that they'll be asking their change maker, and they really just lead the production process from beginning to end. So it really is a collaborative effort among the production team.”
Fresh Films has programs at Rock Island and Davenport Central high schools, as well as the YWCA for teens, and “a really great partnership with the Illinois Film Office which gives us a funding to be able to run an accelerated training program as well,” Conley said. “That's how we were able to start running the accelerated program in the Quad Cities in addition to the high school sites.”
Of the finished Atlas Collective film, she said:
“I'm always so impressed by the work that students create, particularly in this project. I think it's really inspiring to see what matters to young people,” Conley said. “And I think that this film in particular was really beautifully shot, and really highlighted an issue that I think not a lot of people think about.”
The original title of their film was “Not Work, Not Home, But a Third Space.”
“The theme of their film was really about highlighting the importance of having a third space, a different community space for people to gather and come together and share interests, share art, and really have a space to be outside of their home and outside of work,” Conley said. “I thought it was really, really inspiring to hear them highlight that and I think they just ultimately did an incredible job.”
Welcoming all people
In the episode, Atlas founder/owner Kara Taghon said she named the business (which opened in January 2024) after her dog Atlas, and “collective” to encompass many kinds of artists, authors and welcome all people.
“What I hope for people when they come to Atlas Collective is to take a collective breath – grab a cup of coffee, grab a book, bring your own book, sit down and just be at peace,” she says in the film. “The whole point of opening this space is to showcase local makers, local artists and local authors. The impact it’s made on the community is indescribable.”
The five-minute film also features praise from Nikki Steinbaugh (owner of The Macabre Librarian), who credits Atlas for lifting people up, and from artist and social worker Kasia Leikyna, who appreciates that it’s an LGBTQ+ friendly space.
“Just because I'm a queer person, of course it's safe for the community, but it's safe for everybody,” Taghon says in the video. “I want people to feel warm. I want people to know and feel that this is a place for them. This isn't for me. None of it was ever supposed to be for me. It's an outpouring of my love. I want people to walk out of here and know that they're held still. You know, I want to change a part of their day.”
For Carver, the Fresh Films experience was more than a class credit requirement. It also created opportunities to build industry connections and continue developing filmmaking skills outside the classroom.
The film director was Renata Lara (a recent Western Illinois University grad), and Carver was cinematographer, in charge of operating cameras, but wasn’t part of the post-production editing (which whittled the roughly 60 minutes of video down to five).
The rest of the Atlas crew included Minh Tran and Rory Borger-Johnson, and their mentor was professional cinematographer Rick Reinbold, Carver said.
It was Lara's idea to shoot at Atlas Collective. “She had been to the Atlas Collective a number of times just for coffee, and she saw that it was a great space,” Carver said Friday. “They put out a lot of local artists and local writers.”
“The owner of the Atlas Collective, Kara, she was a very good speaker and there was a moment where she got emotional during the interview because she's just so passionate about the Atlas Collective and the message that it puts out,” she said. “She ended up crying and she was so passionate about the Atlas Collective and it was really nice to work with her to see someone so dedicated to her work.”
The Fresh Films crew heard last fall they were picked by Roku for the spot, and Carver said: “I was ecstatic. It was like, on my first project going up on a streaming service. It was also the first film that I had ever made…So getting that on Roku was like, oh, my God, this is crazy. I'm so lucky.”
“My internship with Fresh Films was very similar to the class that I took here,” she said. “It went over all the production fundamentals, the basics of learning how to be in film, and also making several different short film projects that were all about five to 10 minutes. So it was kind of just like taking (Augie’s film class) 250 twice the spring last year.”
Feature film experience
For “Groundhog Gary” (an 80-minute feature), Carver was a set production assistant and B camera operator. She dealt a lot with assisting the director of photography, switching lenses and adjusting lights. That shoot (at several locations in Rock Island) was over three weeks last July, six days a week, averaging 12-hour days, Carver said.
“My favorite part of that project was definitely just all the knowledge and experience that I gained,” she said. “I think it was just a really big education experience because although I was working hard, it was like I was mainly learning as well. And then also, working with the interns was one of my favorite things.
“I think before Fresh Films, I was not really for sure if I was actually going to be able to do film. You know, it's a very hard industry to get out to. It's cutthroat, it's ruthless,” Carver said.
“Seeing the interns just get really excited to be on a set for the first time and kind of have their brain open to be like, if I work really hard, I can do this again. And that was just one of the most magical things, seeing people's dreams come true.”
In addition to a professional cast and crew, “Groundhog Gary: Six More Weeks” was a training ground for the next generation of content creators that are part of the Fresh Films program.
Over 100+ student filmmakers from both the QC and cities across the U.S.—including Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, and Chicago—were part of the production.
“This is truly a transformative experience for our students that gives them more than just technical skills. They’ll interact with award-winning professionals in a variety of functions, and walk away with an industry credential that is foundational to starting a career.” added Kelli Feigley.
Written by two-time Emmy winning screenwriter Liz Hara (Marvel, MoonGirl and Devil Dinosaur), the film stars Marc Evan Jackson (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “The Good Place”) as Mayor Twiss, young actors Henry Wicher (Lego Pixar BrickToons) and Aniya Simone (Disney's “Sydney to the Max”) and features puppeteer Bradley Freeman Jr. (Sesame Street and the new voice of Rizzo the Rat and Bean Bunny, The Muppets) as Gary the Groundhog.
The Fresh Films filmmaking program is always free to youth with no requirement for previous film experience. They operate locally with year-round programs in both Rock Island and Davenport, that are open for all QC youth.
Alumni of the Fresh Films program work as directors, producers, and screenwriters, and also hold positions in marketing, post-production, social media, partner marketing, art direction, media, and HR.
After graduating from Augustana in 2028, Carver hopes to move to Chicago to pursue a career in filmmaking and continue working on large-scale film projects.
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