September Community Outreach
Dear Friends of Project Write Now:
Last Friday, in two different spaces, we were reminded just how vital words are. Words shape the stories we tell about ourselves and our world. Words name what’s happened and imagine what’s possible. Words move us toward action.
Because of your support, those spaces existed.
In Long Branch at Monmouth University, a group of our teen writers from Asbury Park High School were invited to participate in Toni Morrison Day, an annual event sponsored by the English Department honoring the beloved author’s life and legacy. Two students were invited to kick off the college literary contest by sharing their original work, and nearly all shared during the open mic—offering their fears, hopes, and truths with courage and clarity.
“When Samar Kamal performed her poem ‘Divided’ and when Talysha Tanis shared ‘Before the Children Learn to Be Afraid,’ they were not just reading poems—they were claiming space. They were speaking for themselves and for others,” writes their teacher Christine DeMarsico, reflecting on the day here.
In Red Bank, at the Art of Social Justice: EmpowerED professional development day—in collaboration with the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center and Two River Theater—educators spent the day learning about the legacy of the Black press, exploring TRT’s reimagined production of A Doll’s House weaving in Black culture, and using expressive writing to reflect on what they discovered and felt. Many teachers shared how powerful it was to experience history and literature in new ways—and to have the time and space to process it through their own words.
We are so grateful to collaborate with partners—such as Asbury Park High School, Monmouth University, T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center, and Two River Theater—who, like us, believe in creating spaces where stories can be told and heard. Because stories don’t just reflect the world as it is. They help us change it.
Thank you for being part of a community that believes stories matter!
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 Z. Avakian, Director of Community Outreach & Engagement, at meredith@projectwritenow.org.
Asbury Park High School – The Spoken Word Project
For the fourth consecutive year, the students from our Spoken Word Project at Asbury Park High School were welcomed back to Monmouth University for its annual Toni Morrison Day event. We sat in on a lecture by keynote speaker Dr. Piper Kendrix Williams of TCNJ, had some lunch and then toured the campus (as best the weather would permit) before returning back to the hall for more festivities, including an opportunity for a number of our students to recite their original writing and participate in an open mic.
Community Playmaking: Shore House
We are finishing up the drafts of our 10-minute plays with members of Shore House, getting ready for our Community Playmaking Showcase, which takes place Tuesday, March 3, at 1 p.m. at the Long Branch Arts and Cultural Center. We’re excited to see our words and characters come to life in the hands of the actors, who will be cast and directed by Two River Theater. We love this collaboration with Two River Theater and are always amazed at what gets written and produced in just a few short weeks. The showcase is open to all. Please come join us!
The Balance Project
We are excited for a new partnership with The Balance Project, a nonprofit that promotes mindful technology use and meaningful real-life experiences that give children the building blocks for healthy development in a screen-based world. We kicked off their weeklong Blok challenge by giving journals to the teen participants, along with journal prompts for the week. We also hosted an expressive writing workshop during which we did ekphrastic writing (writing in response to art). We love what came out of the writing, especially this collaborative poem that includes one line from each participant based on writing in response to this artwork.
pieces
by the Ink It Up Balance Project participants, February 2026
the overwhelming stack of assignments
s c a t t e r e d throughout—
it’s not a glass ceiling
but a fragmented world
by which I am bound.
the calming music
pierced through
every piece of pottery,
filled with warmth
and solidified with ancient memories,
memories flood like water
through a dried out dam.
the dark blue and red colors
of [this piece]
make me feel calm.
could something blue
come from inside me?
she doesn’t have all the pieces [yet].
the glow that lives within her—
everyone has their own unique force of life.
GEAR UP
Our students leaned into their creative sides this month for some character development and storytelling, word circles, journaling and painting. The students particularly loved diving into their imaginations to create characters, paintings and stories unlike any others. We did a “Love is…” prompt for Valentine’s Day and closed out the month with a “write & pick” your own prompts activity.
Love Is … Community Love Poem
We’re working on another community poem using your answers to what love is! Thank you to all the community members that responded to our prompt: “LOVE IS …” throughout the month in our programs and our social media platforms. Stay tuned—we’ll be sharing the final community poem in March!
Lunchtime Write-In
Writers continued to meet on Zoom for Lunchtime Write-In to write and share original stories and poems. This month, we explored the themes: “Palindromes,” “Friday the 13th: Valentine Edition,” “String,” and “Nail.” We love the writing community that has formed in this group and we are always open to welcoming new participants. Lunchtime Write-In meets on Fridays at 12:15 p.m. ET. Join us for our next Lunchtime Write-In to see what our upcoming theme will be!
Markham Place (Little Silver) – 5th Grade
We have had so much fun in our four-week program with the 5th graders at Markham Place, learning about ekphrasis (writing inspired by art). On our first day, we read “What the Pages Know” by Ryan T. Pozzi and looked at the art that inspired the poem (“Green Wood Birds” by Stephanie Trenchard). We then made lists of what we saw in that same art and used it to inspire our own original pieces. On our second day, we read “Make Art” by Rachel Huckel and we spent the period creating our own unique visual art pieces. On our third day, we read “Why I Am Not a Painter” by Frank O’Hara and then used our original visual art pieces to inspire new ekphrastic works. And on our last day, we read “Starry Night” by Tupac Shakur and created a giant display of art and writing from all four 5th grade classes. We are proud of their hard work and are so grateful to the Little Silver PTO for sponsoring this program.
Markham Place (Little Silver) – 8th Grade
During our most recent Ink & Insight session, we focused on the importance of honoring the present moment. We opened with a community-building “Two Facts and a Fib” activity before hosting the Project Write Now and Markham Place Award Ceremony, where eighth graders designed personalized awards celebrating their strengths, growth, humor, and accomplishments. From “Most Likely to Lose My Sports Jersey” and “Best Baker” to “Most Improved in Math,” “Biggest Bad Bunny Fan,” and “Most Likely to Complain About Softball,” students claimed their identities in creative and meaningful ways. Students also created an Eighth Grade Timeline, mapping favorite memories and events they’re still looking forward to as the school year wraps up. We look forward to our next sessions in March and are so grateful to the Little Silver PTO for sponsoring this program.
Morning Pages
Committed writers continued to meet on Zoom for Morning Pages for an hour every weekday, from 8 to 9 a.m. ET. Want to join us? Sign up for March’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!
PWN Teen Café Open Mic
Our first-ever PWN Teen Café Open Mic at The Art of the Bean and Leaf in Asbury Park was so moving and magical! We are extremely grateful to all who bravely took the mic to share their stories and hearts with us. Also to our incredible supportive audience, and of course Nancy from The Art of the Bean and Leaf for graciously offering her space for the event. We are so excited to come back for another PWN Teen Café Open Mic on April 19! Be sure to hold your spot by registering today.
Red Bank Middle School AVID (in-school)
Our 7th and 8th grade AVID students at Red Bank Middle School wrote love poems to give to Red Bank seniors and patients at Riverview Medical Center. We also wrote our own love letters, or letters of appreciation, to the people we felt most deserved them. We saved our favorite lines and collected them into a collaborative love poem that you can read here. And we used random facts to inspire our writing, too. All students will be submitting to our Voice & Verse writing contest.
Red Bank Middle School PWN Creative Expression Club (after-school)
We have been having so much fun in our PWN Creative Expression after-school program for 6th – 8th graders at Red Bank Middle School! This month, we read “Writing Prompt” by Michael Torres and used the poem as our own writing prompt. We also read “And I Have You” by Nikki Giovanni and wrote about what love is to us—what it looks like, where we find it, how we feel it … Then we used the rest of the period to art journal, leaning into different forms of creative expression.
Red Bank Middle School PWN Write to Be Here Club (after-school)
We are so grateful to offer a new after-school program to 4th and 5th graders, the PWN Write to Be Here Club, in collaboration with Georgian Court University! Last week, students dove into Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends and began building neighborhoods with words, using playful prompts on popsicle sticks to imagine where they’re from, what they’d redesign, and what might exist just beyond the sidewalk. Together, they shared their ideas and chose six “building blocks” to represent their vision. Those words will then become literal sidewalks in a growing collaborative map. In the weeks ahead, we’ll keep adding—sensory-filled buildings, heroes, poetry gardens, and even mythical creatures—ending with each group naming their neighborhood and sharing a piece of writing. Along the way, we’re exploring how words shape the worlds we imagine and the futures we hope to build.
Red Bank Regional Outside the Box Journaling & Art Club
We closed out the month with our final session at Red Bank Regional High School of our Outside The Box Journaling and Art Club. We turned to letters of release, letters of love, and letters of truth. Students were invited to choose what they needed most to break up with that no longer served them, to write a note of compassion to themselves, or to simply put words to what had been weighing on their hearts. Through art, journaling, and creativity, each piece became a reflection of growth and self-awareness. February may be known as the month of love, but in our space, love looked like boundaries, honesty, courage, and care. The freedom to create without pressure allowed students to express themselves in meaningful ways, reinforcing that self-love is choosing yourself, in whatever way that looks like right now. It was a beautiful way to honor both the journey and the close of our semester together.
Teen Writing Space
Our teen writers have been diving deeply into the works of published writers and their back stories, learning from those they admire most. They’ve explored Ernest Hemingway’s short fiction and iceberg technique, Jhumpa Lahiri’s “A Temporary Matter” and craft choices, Lucille Clifton, Bob Hicok, and Julia Strayer. They also looked into surrealism and practiced some ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by art). We are always so inspired by this group. Teen Writing Space runs on Thursdays from 4:30 to 6 p.m. ET until March 12. You can still join anytime!
Voice & Verse Writing Contest
Writers ages 12-18 are now welcome to submit to our Voice & Verse writing contest, open until March 30. This is our sixth annual teen writing contest where our teen ambassadors read through all of the submissions and pick winners to be published in a feature issue of Bridge Ink. We welcome submissions of both poetry (up to 200 lines) and prose (up to 3,000 words) from young writers anywhere in the world.
Write Out Loud
In the spirit of the season, we had a love-themed Write Out Loud at Asbury Book Cooperative in Asbury Park. After checking in with our “Love is …” contributions for our PWN community poem, everyone participated in a write-around. Since the community typically writes individually, it was fun to experiment a bit and all add a line to each other’s stories. After receiving all of our co-creations, we took a bit of time responding to the “Love is …” prompt, concluding with group sharing. Join us for our next Write Out Loud in March!
Womyn’s Worth
We provided our first expressive writing session for this year’s Womyn’s Worth group at Lunch Break, in collaboration with Melia Bloom. We began by grounding ourselves using the 5-4-3-2-1 method, noting what we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. Then we read “Valentine for Ernest Mann” by Naomi Shihab Nye to inspire writing that honored the stories we carry in and around us every day. We closed out by writing about what we love and are grateful for. We look forward to joining the womyn again next month!
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. In 2025, we provided 45 seats totaling $12,619.00. So far for 2026, we’ve offered 13 seats totaling $3,365. 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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