September Community Outreach
Dear Friends of Project Write Now:
Eleven years ago, Project Write Now began with a clear vision: to create spaces where stories could connect, heal, and empower.
Thanks to you, that vision continues to grow.
Throughout 2025, your support helped amplify voices, foster meaningful connections, and create spaces where people of all ages could feel seen, heard, and valued.
One of the highlights of the year was coming together in October for our annual Community Celebration, during which we honored our community partners with awards, including Senator Vin Gopal, educator Jenny Morelli, the team at Two River Theater, and volunteers Kelly Cullen, Jennifer Gaites, and Shanda McManus. We were also moved by readings from writers across our programs, including Sklya Bicca, Miliani Torres, Joseph Serrano-Olguin, Grace Kellett, Shani Love, Kate Cordaro, and Elyse Kehoe.
Another major highlight of 2025 was participating in the Prudential North to Shore Festival with our Sound Bytes: Stories & Food for the Soul event, in collaboration with The City of Asbury Park Mayor’s Wellness Committee. The event featured stories by ten notable Asbury Park residents and delicious food from Ada’s Gojjo, Cardinal Provisions, and Cookman Creamery.
This year also marked exciting milestones, including our debut at AWP, the largest literary conference in North America, and growth within our team—welcoming Meredith Avakian as our full-time director of community outreach & engagement and celebrating Lisa Hartsgrove’s 10-year anniversary with Project Write Now.
You can read all about our 2025 accomplishments here.
As we look ahead to 2026, we’re building on the momentum of this year—expanding access to expressive writing and creating even more spaces where people can reflect, connect, and feel heard.
None of this would be possible without the generosity and care of this community—including our supporters, staff, community partners, and all who participated in our classes, workshops, and events.
We wish you and your loved ones a warm and meaningful start to 2026!
With love & gratitude,
Here’s what else we’ve been up to this month. If you are interested in bringing a community outreach program to your school or mission-based organization, email Meredith Avakian, Director of Community Outreach & Engagement, at meredith@projectwritenow.org.
Asbury Park High School – The Spoken Word Project
We’re excited to return to Asbury Park High School with our Spoken Word Project for its fifth year! Wonderful to have some students return and a pleasure to share space with teens who are new to PWN, for the first time. We decorated journals, wrote and reflected on gratitude, shared some spoken word poetry, and had meaningful conversations regarding the importance of having supportive spaces in schools for students to express themselves.
Lunch Break – Community Playmaking
We were thrilled to return to Lunch Break this fall for a second round of Community Playmaking, in collaboration with Two River Theater. Five playwrights and three new participants met weekly to write original 10-minute plays under our guidance. On December 15, six of these plays were brought to life by professional actors directed by the Two River Theater’s education director, Kate Cordaro. It was an incredible evening of joy and connection through live storytelling. Thank you to all the playwrights and to Justin Waldman, Kate Cordaro, and the Two River Theater team for inviting us to be a part of this very special program.
Lunchtime Write-In (Virtual)
This month, writers met on Zoom for Lunchtime Write-In to write and share our stories on December 12. We explored the theme “Shine” as we feel we shine brightest when we are together. We love the writing community that has formed in this group and we can’t wait to be back weekly in January. Join us for our next Lunchtime Write-In to see what our upcoming theme will be!
Morning Pages
This month, committed writers met in Morning Pages for an hour every weekday, from 8 to 9 a.m. ET, to write together. Want to join us? Sign up for January’s Morning Pages and write with us any weekday through the month. We are so grateful for the community that has formed around starting our days with words on a page!
Project HEAL / Elevate
We had the honor and pleasure of hosting three “Trusting the Process” workshops with Project HEAL / Elevate—one with staff, one with their adult clients, and one with their youth clients. In each session, we played in a word circle, shared some poetry, journaled about who / what / where brings us joy, and painted from a place of joy. This was the second set of workshops in an ongoing series as part of our community partnership. We are so grateful to this amazing team for the vital work they do. Here’s to calling in more joy in 2026 and beyond!
PWN India (Adults)
We closed 2025 with our adult journaling group in India by reflecting on what we’re grateful for. We used the poem “Meta” by Reverend Robin G. White as inspiration and wrote our own lists of moments, ideas, and memories that bring us joy. We look forward to resuming our group in 2026.
Red Bank Middle School AVID
With our 7th and 8th grade Red Bank Middle School AVID students, we read “What I Want to Tell You” by Laura Gamache and then used lines and ideas from the poem as writing prompts: “Bravery is …” “Love is …” “It’s okay to forget …” “Keep …” and “Be …” We collected our favorite lines for our next collaborative poem. Stay tuned as this will be a collaboration between both classes and will be published in a forthcoming issue of Bridge Ink! We also read “The Problem with Gratitude” by Abby E. Murray and personified emotions, creating characters out of Nostalgia, Intensity, and Joy, for example. And to close out 2025, we read “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye and wrote about our 2025 highlights and lowlights over gummy bear treats. We loved hearing so many students name PWN as a highlight! We always share our new pieces in a share-circle at the end of class.
Red Bank Middle School PWN Creative Expression Club
We ended our PWN Creative Expression Club for 6-8th graders at Red Bank Middle School, and we were so sad to say goodbye. But it’s not goodbye forever, just for a month or so as we’ll be returning at the end of January! We read “The Party” by Jason Shinder and used lines from the poem to inspire our writing. Then we used the rest of our time together to finish our art journaling projects. We laughed and created while munching on Dove chocolates, some even using the wrappers in their journals, too. We’re so glad that all of our students promised to sign up again in January. We can’t wait to be back!
Red Bank Regional – Outside the Box Journaling & Art Club
During December, writing in the Outside the Box Journaling & Art Club became a space for reflection, conversation, and creativity. Writers were invited to check in and express themselves through art, poetry, journaling, and conversations. Themes explored included expressing gratitude, personal challenges, and moments of growth. We also identified meaningful moments in 2025, and from there, created personal awards and wrote acceptance speeches honoring our perseverance, both quiet and loud wins, and the support systems that helped move us forward this year. We were grateful to have Meredith, Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at Project Write Now, visit and participate in our club session. December’s sessions reflected the heart of Outside the Box, where writing and art are tools used for self-expression, reflection, and growth.
Shore House
Inspired by the recent collaborative poems written by Red Bank Middle School students, Shore House members also pulled their favorite words together to see what their community voice might sound like. Each writer wrote to the prompts, “What are the sweetest things you can think of, both literal and figurative? What brings you warmth, both internally and externally? What makes you feel comfy? What makes you feel special and magical? Or where do you feel magic? What makes you happy? And what brings you joy?” We can’t wait to share their collaboration—stay tuned as this will come out in early 2026! We also used sound bowls as inspiration after a guided meditation by one of our instructors. We have had a blast closing out the year with Shore House writers.
Teacher Writing Collaborative
We closed out 2025 reading “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye, using the poem as inspiration to reflect on what we’d like to “burn” from 2025 but also what burned brightly. A lot of what came up in our writing centered on grief and we supported one another by honoring the memories of our loved ones. We are so grateful to be in community, taking this time to reflect and connect. Our TWC returns on January 28.
Write Out Loud
Surrounded by our regular attendees, as well as four first-timers to PWN, we had a lovely Write Out Loud session at Asbury Book Cooperative to close out 2025. Our theme was joy and we used Mary Oliver’s poem “Don’t Hesitate,” as well as a “Manifesto for Joy,” as our writing-prompts inspiration, immediately followed by group sharing and an “open mic.” Complete with chocolate candies and (electric) candles, we braved the cold for cozy vibes with our writing tribe. Thanks to everyone who’s joined us at Asbury Book Coop this year. We look forward to returning with this regularly scheduled monthly writing community meetup in January!
Scholarship Seats
Through our mission as a nonprofit organization, we remove barriers to participating in our fee-based classes by providing full and partial scholarship seats as well as payment plans. This year, we provided 45 seats totaling $12,619.00. For information about our scholarship program or to become a valuable donor providing these seats, please email Jennifer Chauhan at jennifer@projectwritenow.org.
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