A friend of mine, Patrick Watson out of Mendota Heights, gave me the idea. He had shared on his social media that he was doing free mini sessions for seniors that could not afford to hire a photographer to do a full session for them. I instantly knew that I needed to do the same thing here in Hastings.”

Bruce Karnick

The Hastings community is certainly used to seeing Bruce Karnick with his camera equipment in tow. A reporter/photographer for the Hastings Journal, the newspaper is fortunate to have one of the state’s best on the other side of the lens.

Karnick put his shutters to positive use last week, taking pictures of Hastings High School seniors in need of having yearbook pictures taken, either for financial or any other reasons.

Karnick said he got the idea from a fellow shutterbug and went to work to quickly hatch the program for HHS seniors.

“A friend of mine, Patrick Watson out of Mendota Heights, gave me the idea. He had shared on his social media that he was doing free mini sessions for seniors that could not afford to hire a photographer to do a full session for them. I instantly knew that I needed to do the same thing here in Hastings. I ended up speaking with Madeline Wieneke at a soccer game. She is a teacher at the high school, and she helped organize everything on the school end of things,” said Karnick.

School staff did all in their power to help put the volunteer effort in motion.

“The whole thing came to fruition in less than eight days. The first email went out to senior high school principal Scott Doran just before 5 p.m. on Oct. 4 and I was taking pictures by 10 a.m. on Oct 12. Once I knew the school was interested in helping put this together, I started reaching out to people,” said Karnick.

Hastings Community TV was excited to help.

“My first call was to Mike Bremer at HCTV, I was hoping to utilize their studio for a few reasons. First, it is on the third floor of the high school, and it was out of sight from the majority of students so any kids that were taking advantage of the opportunity would not feel embarrassed. Second, the space could be configured how it would need to be with lighting and backdrops. Third, with the setup of their lobby, there was a TV that the students could preview their images on which allowed us to go through the pictures with them and eliminate the ones they did not like 100 percent,” said Karnick.

With the location solidified, Karnick contacted Walgreen’s about getting pictures printed and took his project to social media.  

“I asked Walgreens if they had a deal on printing photos or if they could maybe donate some prints. The manager went through a lot of different ideas and found a buy one get one deal on 8 x 10 prints so that they only cost about $6.80 for two printed sheets,” said Karnick.

Not surprisingly, the community then jumped forward to help pay for the pictures.

“I put a post up on social media. I explained the idea and asked for donations to help pay for some prints for each kid. I had no idea how many kids would do this, so I started out asking for $200. I ended up getting $350. That amount has made it so I could get 10 pages printed per student,” said Karnick.

Along with the donations, a few people offered to help, Pam Onnen and Sarah Wasvick joined for the first few hours, and Onnen stayed the entire day. Hunter Pinke, Kurt Radke and Mike Bremer of HCTV also helped with the event.

“Kurt and Mike helped set up. Hunter, Sarah and Mike helped with the reviewing of the pictures with the students. Pam was amazing at helping the kids get ready and feeling comfortable in the studio. Both Sarah and Pam were the studio moms who also helped me with my confidence in taking the pictures and with the posing of the kids,” said Bruce.

 “Once the ball started rolling, I kind of felt like Indiana Jones being chased by the ball. I thought ‘what did I get myself into?’. I was really worried I was going to let 20 kids down by not being able to pull this together properly. Once Mike said I could use the studio, a huge weight was lifted, and I knew that this would be a good day. Honestly, without Madeline, Mike, Kurt, Hunter, Pam and Sarah helping me the day of and the support from them leading up to the day, I would have been a mess. I really could not have done this without them, and it was truly a community effort,” said Karnick.

He's thankful for the donors for helping it come together.

“A huge thank you needs to go out to the donors, too. Carbone’s fed us lunch which was awesome. Friends that helped donate to the prints; Missy Holt, Amy Karnick, Gregg Wallner, The Spool House (Dolores Pemble), Jessie Nowak, Kate Jenkins, Mitch Hagen, Tara Zgoda and Angela Strain. Because of these generous people, eight students not only have a senior picture for the yearbook, but also 10 pages of prints from Walgreens,” said Karnick. “Overall, the day was incredible. All eight kids were very appreciative and fun to work with, and I’d like to think we made them feel special for the hour they were with us. Several of them lit up when they saw their picture on the big TV, and one will stand out for a very long time. They are a mostly non-verbal kid and the way their face changed when they were going through their pics was very touching. Their response, in particular their smile, made the long day worth it.”