If you have a favorite charity or nonprofit organization that promotes a cause dear to your heart, you might want to consider getting involved as a volunteer producer for your local public access TV station.

Public Access TV for decades has offered training and equipment that allows nonprofit organizations and individuals to create programming to be aired on local cable channels. Sponsored and funded by the cable TV industry, these public access channels offer volunteers training in how to operate cameras, lights, and editing and graphics equipment, as well as how to produce programming, and then turn their volunteer producers loose, with free access to the equipment, to produce their own shows.

This arrangement offers a valuable opportunity to communicate with local citizens about serious issues. Are you an environmentalist? Consider creating a program that covers one or more of the most serious environmental problems facing your area. Concerned about access to social service programs? Do an overview of the many governmental and non-governmental social service organizations in your region that offer assistance to people in need. Interested in the local political scene? Offer to interview all candidates for upcoming local and regional offices, asking them questions relevant to the issues they will be facing if elected.

Public Access TV is a valuable resource to the communities it serves, and offers a powerful tool for you, the concerned citizen, to highlight your concerns. If you've got issues or information you want to share with your neighbors, consider taking it to public access TV.