48 hours. A feature on Huffington post, a spot on BuzzFeed, and a retweet by Lady Gaga herself all happened in forty-eight hours. My a cappella group, Three Miles Lost, covered Gaga’s “Til it Happens to You” and released a video which blew up to over 32,000 views, along with the other posts, in just 48 hours. What had originally been a project we hoped would be for our campus, grew rapidly and spread to a much wider community. It was incredible, none of us expected this large of a reaction to our video. We were a small, student organized, group from a small school, and we created this project for our community. It was exciting to see that our video and its message was impacting a much wider audience, however it was also a little overwhelming at times. Overnight we found ourselves at the forefront of social change and quickly learned we needed a mentor and some guidance on how to move forward with all this momentum. None of us had to deal with this kind of press coverage and we wanted advice on how to speak with the media and ensure that the message stayed true to the cause. This movement had come from such a pure place and we didn’t want all the press coverage to remove our voices from the conversation and taint that. 

 

As I previously mentioned, we are an all student organized group, meaning we do not have a faculty advisor or external advisor. With all this press coverage, we weren’t sure exactly how to handle it, we needed advice, so we reached out to our Colleges administrators. We were fortunate to have such an incredible support system from our school. They made us a priority and would speak with us, and answer any questions we had. In fact, our communications office, even did mock interviews with us when we requested them. They took time out of their busy schedules to ensure we felt comfortable and ready for anything that might come our way. We felt a great deal of pressure and they eased some of the stress by always being available to answer any questions we had and providing guidance anytime we asked for it. Their mentorship helped our group spread our message.

 

Without the guidance and mentorship our message may have gotten away from us. We may have lost our voice in this movement. It was a great learning experience for us, we became aware of the power of our voices and value of mentorship and guidance. With the power of both, we were able to continue spreading our message further and today we have over 274,000 views on YouTube, were featured on NPR, and on local news channels. 

 

Mentorship helped Three Miles Lost, if you would like to hear more about mentorship may help your movement click below for more information...click below for a  free download.