BY YOUTH FOR YOUTH

PSa CAMPAIGN

By Youth For Youth was our first and most defining work—a public service campaign that founded Regenerate Films and established the mission we still carry today. It began in 2001, when two local teenagers died in a tragic car crash and 15-year-old filmmaker Jordan Miller began producing public service announcements alongside the family of one of the victims and a mourning Thousand Oaks community.

We realized an authentic youth voice was essential in making media that kids would respond to. In 2002, we presented the idea of youth-produced PSAs to the Thousand Oaks City Council, who granted $10,000 to get it off the ground. Regenerate was founded that same year, with over a dozen young people actively involved alongside professional mentors, under the supervision of the Ventura County Community Foundation.

Our mission was to prevent the intersecting leading causes of teen deaths and injuries in the United States: car crashes, suicide, and violence—by empowering the young people most affected by these issues to create work that would actually reach their peers.

first PSas

The earliest By Youth For Youth PSAs were produced for the Thousand Oaks community and screened at schools, government programs, and film festivals across the country—from Sundance to AtomFilms, Georgia State, the National Youth Film Festival, and more.

.08

In 2004, Regenerate produced its largest and most ambitious project to date: .08, an $80,000 narrative short film made in partnership with the Santa Ana Police Department and the California Office of Traffic Safety, who chose Regenerate’s teen filmmakers over several vendors. Featuring realistic depictions of drunk driving and its consequences, the film was designed to reach young people where conventional safe driving campaigns couldn't.

.08 screened in Driver Education programs across California and became the centerpiece of a traveling safety trailer that toured hundreds of cities statewide. Oprah's Oxygen Network and Tribune picked it up for nationwide distribution, bringing Regenerate's youth-driven voice to a national audience for the first time.

Distracted Driving

Produced for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the California Office of Traffic Safety, the Distracted Driving PSA stars Brooke Nevin (I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer) and Michael Welch (Twilight), who both appear in My Suicide.

Partners

Over the course of the By Youth For Youth era, Regenerate collaborated with organizations that shared our commitment to youth safety and empowerment: