September Community Outreach
Dear Friends of Project Write Now:
As we step into 2025, we’re reflecting on the importance of our mission to create supportive and inclusive spaces for people of all ages and backgrounds to write and share their stories.
That’s why we’re thrilled to share that Project Write Now has earned an organizational trauma-informed certification through The Grief Ritual’s program!
What does this mean? Our core team has undergone comprehensive training to recognize, respond to, and support individuals who have experienced trauma—ensuring that our programs continue to be welcoming, compassionate, and empowering for all.
In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out this training to all of our instructors so that every person in our community continues to be met with care, respect, and evidence-based practices that honor their stories.
At Project Write Now, we believe in the healing power of writing and the importance of holding space for one another’s experiences. Whether you’re working, writing, or creating with us, you can trust that we’re here to support you—every step of the way.
As always, we could not do this important work without YOU!
Whether you’ve taken a class, signed your child up for a class, participated in one of our events, or given a generous gift, YOU help us provide meaningful writing experiences that foster authenticity, connection, and empathy.
And a special thank you to our 2024-2025 PWN Partners for your generosity and commitment to our mission of transforming lives through the power of writing.
Wishing you a year filled with inspiration, connection, and meaningful stories!
With love & gratitude,
Here’s what else we’ve been up to this month. If you are interested in bringing a program to your school or organization, email executive director Jennifer Chauhan at jennifer@projectwritenow.org.
Asbury Park High School The Spoken Word Project
We wrapped up the first semester of The Spoken Word Project at Asbury Park High School, with the final sessions focusing on coming up with a name for our anthology booklet for the 2024-2025 school year, as well as selecting students’ writings for the publication. Our last class fell on the 16th birthday of one of the students, so we spent some time writing about our desired birthday celebrations. Additionally, we want to shout out a special thanks to our friends at Asbury Book Cooperative for donating approximately 200 books to Asbury Park High School for their upperclassmen students to enjoy!
Asbury Park High School Voices & Vision
Our Asbury Park High School students are continuing on their road to graduation and moving to the next phase—adulting! As they continue to research college, trade school, entrepreneurship, and employment, they now turn towards community involvement. The students thought through and listed the things that brought them joy as well as the problems they would like to solve. We now know the process of developing community service projects and how we will develop and implement the projects. Students will write about their experiences and how they plan to use them going forward.
HABcore
In collaboration with Monmouth Arts, we worked with members of Red Bank’s HABcore, creating art and then using our creations as writing prompts. First, we talked about how art is subjective and leaned into the joy of the process of creating without thinking about the final product. Then we read Tupac Shakur’s “Starry Night” as an example of ekphrastic writing. We made a list of all the things our new art evoked in us—what we saw, imagined, and felt. And then we used that list to inspire original storytelling. We look forward to working more with HABcore in the future!
Lunch Break Womyn’s Worth
We are so grateful to Melia Bloom for inviting us again to be part of the Womyn’s Worth program at Lunch Break. We kicked off the journaling component by having the women introduce themselves by writing and sharing stories about an object. Then we used Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Burning the Old Year” as inspiration to reflect on what we want to leave behind (both literally and figuratively) in 2024, what we want to carry with us into 2025, and what we want to imagine for ourselves in 2025. It was so wonderful to be in such an inspiring, caring community and we look forward to our next three sessions together.
Lunchtime Write-In
On Fridays, we host a one-hour writing workshop on Zoom during which we write in response to themed prompts. This month, we explored the themes: “Glass,” “Mix,” and “Over.” Though writers never have to share, we always enjoy hearing one another’s pieces and have formed an incredible, supportive community. Join us for our next Lunchtime Write-In to see what our upcoming themes will be!
Morning Pages
This year, we decided to try something new. We’ve created a pay-what-you-can virtual writing group that meets every weekday morning to write! At 8 a.m., we log into Zoom to greet each other, holding ourselves accountable to make time for our writing. We go around the Zoom room and set our intentions for the hour. Then, we turn our audio and video off and write! We come back at 9 a.m. to check in and report on what we accomplished. Some days are more productive than others, but all participants are grateful for the dedicated hour to write alongside fellow writers. We love it so much we are continuing it for February. Register here to join us!
Red Bank Middle School
- 7th & 8th Grade AVID (in-school)
At the end of December, we looked back at 2024 and wrote down all of the memories we wanted to hold on to. Now, we’re looking forward to 2025 and beyond, and we wrote about our predictions for the future and what we want the future to remember about our present. We collected our favorite lines into two collaborative poems, and then we wrote more collaborative stories in smaller groups. The first group was of their own selection; the second group was selected by us. It was awesome seeing the difference when they were paired with their best friends versus when they chose to work with people they don’t usually work with. We love collaboration! We also used random facts as inspiration, taking a thread of truth and spinning it with our creative imaginations.
- PWN Writing Club Grades 4-5 (after-school)
Our second PWN Writing Club of the school year started off with a group of 24 students! The writers decorated their new writing journals with stickers and markers. They LOVE the stickers. We might even use a sticker as a prompt for writing in the future! The writers also wrote down some interests on Post-Its and some of the writers shared with the group. Pets were a favorite topic to discuss. We are looking forward to another fun and creative session of writing with these young writing enthusiasts!
- PWN Quest Club Grades 6-8 (after-school)
We kicked off our second Quest Club of the school year with eighteen students registered! We used stickers and drawings to make our notebooks our own and then we talked about what it means to go on a quest. We wrote our own quest stories and invited students to jot questions down on Post-Its and add them to our Quest Bag. We end every session by pulling questions from our Quest Bag and having open-ended discussions around them.
Shore House
Shore House spent January with an eye on the sky! Writers played with the idea of harnessing the symbolism of the ever-reliable and ever-changing moon phases. First, we played with the idea of “nothing” and the new moon. “Doing nothing often leads to the very best of something.” — Winnie The Pooh. Next we leaned into creative storytelling, with written and spoken word writing about what the changes in the appearance of the moon can illuminate for either our own lives or for characters in a piece of fictional writing. Stay tuned for another exciting upcoming creative project with our friends at Shore House in February!
Teen Writing Space
We are off to another incredible session of Teen Writing Space. OG teen leader Alex came back for our first class, inviting students to discuss their answers to personal questions to better get to know one another. Then they used their answers as writing prompts, digging into the stories under their identities. In our second class, teen leaders Josh and Skyla took turns giving prompts. They each picked a random book and turned to designated pages and wrote down select words, and then they used those words in their writing. They also wrote about nostalgic moments, and they did ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by art) using this as their inspiration. You can still join Teen Writing Space anytime during the session!
Words & Herbs
Our Words & Herbs winter retreat was a day of self-care and wellness at Calgo Gardens in Freehold, NJ. It was designed for attendees to go inward, honoring the slow pace of winter while connecting with community and nature. Hosted in collaboration with MotMot Collective, we spent most of our time in a cozy yurt, where we kicked off with a grounding meditation, some journaling and intention-setting, before moving into an herbal tea meditation. We then had a delicious and nutritious lunch catered by Tulip Tree Café, where we enjoyed the meal together. Following lunch, we took a silent meditation walk through the gardens before returning to the yurt for some group writing, crafting, and sharing. It was such a hit, we’ve decided to host this retreat every season. Stay tuned for the next date!
Write Out Loud
Every second Tuesday evening of the month, we host Write Out Loud at the Asbury Book Cooperative. The past few months, we’ve been pulling suggestions for monthly themes. Our word for January was “rebirth.” We kicked off with writing and sharing some intentions before reading “The Roses of Time” by Chinese poet Bei Dao. The poem sparked a great discussion about symbolism of rebirth and then served as our writing prompt. Everyone shared what they wrote and some attendees shared previously written works. We all then proposed a theme for next month and the word “development” was selected. Interestingly enough, afterward one of the co-facilitators found a bat on the sidewalk on the walk back to her car and then looked up the meaning. Turns out bats are a symbol of rebirth! Join us for the next Write Out Loud event in February.
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. Since 2020, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the need for financial assistance and therefore have met that need by offering more scholarship seats. For 2024, we provided 59 seats totaling $14,342.50. So far this year, we’ve provided 14 seats totaling $6,924. 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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