KM graduate wins national video contest

A Mantorville native has won a video contest that brings awareness to distracted driving. Hannah Brumfield, 19, entered the contest in March as a senior at Kasson-Mantorville High School, and found out earlier this month that she had won.
“I’m really proud of the message,” Brumfield said of her 30-second video. “Having it win was a really big deal.”
The video was part of an End Distracted Driving (EndDD) video contest. Brumfield’s video was a compilation of photos spanning her life, while a ticking clock could be heard emphasizing how fast life can change. Some of the photos in the video also showed a car crash simulation that took place at Brumfield’s school.
Joel Feldman of Philadelphia co-founded EndDD after his daughter Casey was killed in 2009 in a distracted driving incident. Casey, 21, was walking across a crosswalk on a beautiful summer day, Feldman said, when a man struck her. He’d been reaching for his GPS, drove through a stop sign and hit Casey never having seen her.
“Five hours later we were told in the hospital that she did not survive,” Feldman said. “We decided we wanted to do something to make a difference in Casey’s name. We thought the tragedy of her death might be lessened a bit if we could help other young people to stay safe.”
Feldman then started speaking to teenagers about distracted driving. He chose the age group because younger drivers are responsible for more distracted driving crashes than any other age group. He’s spoken to 200,000 students over the years.
Brumfield’s video will now be incorporated into Feldman’s speaking engagements. Her video was one of 200 entered into the contest.
“It’s really cool to know Joel is going to use my video,” Brumfield said. “He’ll make an impact on other kids and having that message be shown to other people who choose to drive distracted is neat.”
Brumfield, who is now a freshman at Columbia College in Chicago, won a $5,000 prize for winning first place in the video contest, and another $500 that she is donating to the local Toys for Tots campaign. She’ll also take $100 of her $5,000 winnings and donate it to her local Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) chapter, which she was president of during her time at KM High School.
Brumfield said it was her second time entering the video contest. The concept of her winning video was to illustrate how quickly one’s life can change.
“Thirty seconds changes your life,” she said. “I could have died or hurt someone else if I had chosen to drive distracted.”
Feldman too pauses to think of how he used to drive distracted, but no longer.
“It took me a couple of months and then I realized I was a terrible distracted driver as well,” Feldman said. “And all my anger at this man (who hit Casey) was rather hypocritical. So I changed the way I drive.”