Steve Riggs returned to H.B. Wilson Family School in Camden, NJ, this fall to bring Healthy NewsWorks’ unique media literacy program to the same elementary school he attended as a child.
“It feels like a full-circle moment,” said Steve, a Healthy NewsWorks program associate. “I can’t believe I’m there and have the opportunity to do this.”
H.B. Wilson is one of two new school partners participating in Healthy NewsWorks unique health journalism and literacy program this fall. Programming also recently began at Henry A. Brown Elementary School in Philadelphia. Healthy NewsWorks will serve a total of 23 schools in the Philadelphia area during the 2026-27 school year.
Steve attended H.B. Wilson from kindergarten through fifth grade. He said his old Camden neighborhood remains familiar but the H.B. Wilson building where he was a student was torn down and replaced.
He grew up on Lakeshore Drive and not long after he met his Wilson reporting team, he discovered that two of his students live there now.
“You grew up on Lakeshore Drive?” he remembered them asking.
That connection has made Steve especially interested in hearing the perspectives of students growing up in the same community he did. He said their experience with Healthy NewsWorks will teach them “how to be fact finders, truth seekers, and help people stay healthy.”
Steve also recalled the impact his own teachers at H.B. Wilson had on him. His first- and second-grade teachers became a source of inspiration that led him to become an educator.
“Now I try to be that to my current students,” he said.
It is an opportunity Steve never imagined he would have when he was a student at H.B. Wilson.
“It’s a really great program,” he said, “and to be in the position to work with kids that grew up where I grew up is a privilege.”
“Hopefully, it’s the beginning of a long partnership between Healthy NewsWorks and H.B. Wilson,” Steve said.
