September Community Outreach
Dear Friends of Project Write Now:
We’re still smiling from Friday night’s unforgettable CringeFest event!
Our annual fundraiser was a HUGE success—and it wouldn’t have been possible without YOU!
Our gratitude vibe is flowing, and we’re feeling it for every single person who helped make the night so special.
Thank you to everyone who came out to support us with your presence, your laughter, and your applause.
To our incredible performers—Charles Chrystol, Matt Daniels, Vicki Fernandez, Allison Lebo & Courtney Young, and Sara Thygeson Schivell—thank you for your courage, your humor, and your heart. You made us laugh, tear up, and cheer! A big congratulations to Sara Thygeson Schivell for winning the People’s Choice award!
We are also so grateful to comedian Gary Simons for entertaining us with his incredible humor and wit! (Be sure to follow Gary on instagram @garyfromconnecticut.)
To our amazing PWN CringeFest team—Jennifer Chauhan, Kelly Cullen, Colleen Doogan, Jennifer Gaites, Lisa Hartsgrove, and Maria Wood—and volunteers: you helped everything run so smoothly—we’re so grateful for your time, energy, and enthusiasm.
And to our generous sponsors: thank you for championing our mission and making this event—and our work—possible.
All proceeds from CringeFest fuel our outreach programs, spreading the joy and impact of storytelling and expressive writing.
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.
AMPLIFY at UMC Red Bank
We were honored to be included in Red Bank UMC’s AMPLIFY event on Sunday, March 30, celebrating young trans voices and the LGBTQ+ community. We are so grateful to all who stopped by our table, some decorating notebooks to reflect the words they planned to later fill it with, some choosing to fill their notebooks with words first. We were so inspired by all the other organizations who came together for this event, too, and especially by the brave volunteers who shared their voices at the end. It was such a powerful day and we are proud to have been a part of it. We look forward to working more with UMC in the future!
Asbury Park Library Journaling Club
We are still riding high on the vibes from wrapping up weekly winter journaling club sessions for youth at the Asbury Park Public Library. The program targets middle school students, but ended up bringing in children of all ages, as well as a number of parents, who also participated in some of the sessions. Shout out to The City of Asbury Park Mayor’s Wellness Committee for supporting some of the workshops. We were delighted to have Mayor John Moor and Committee Chair Karyn Moskowitz join us as special guests. As a bonus—they brought vegan empanadas and plantains from Ada’s Gojjo not once, but twice. Thank you! Yum! Thanks also to our donors, whose generous contributions help make these free community offerings possible! We look forward to continuing these weekly workshops at Asbury Park Public Library this fall.
Blue Dot Community
We kicked off a three-month-long writing workshop series with our friends at Blue Dot Community at the Asbury Book Cooperative. Blue Dot is a community-connection project at the Jersey Shore promoting physical, cognitive, and social health for adults with and without neuro and developmental disabilities. Everyone went around and shared a happy memory, and then we all took turns reading lines from (an excerpt of) Joe Brainard’s “I Remember,” which served as our first writing and group sharing prompt. For our second, we wrote and shared about springtime. After sharing some of our favorite things about springtime, we used the poem “Today” by Billy Collins and several prompts for inspiration. From thinking about the sights, sounds, and smells of spring, to setting intentions of feeling the “jolts of joy” many of us receive as the seasons shift, it has all made for lovely group sharing discussion. We’re super excited about this new community partnership and look forward to the rest of our sessions together!
Brookdale Community College GEAR UP
We continued our weekly workshops with middle school students from Asbury Park at the Brookdale Community College campus in Wall Twp. as part of the GEAR UP program. In recent weeks, we’ve covered Women’s History Month, introducing Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman,” writing letters and creating cards for loved ones. We’ve shared food stories, the shifting of seasons, and springtime poetry. Students also received a special visit from the City of Asbury Park Mayor’s Wellness Committee Chair Karyn Moskowitz and her intern Allie, who brought trays of delicious, plant-based empanadas from Ada’s Gojjo for everyone. With only one more session left, we are grateful for the start of this new community partnership and end to two months of weekly workshops.
Lunch Break Womyn’s Worth
We concluded our expressive writing sessions with this year’s Womyn’s Worth group. After a short grounding meditation, we wrote letters to our future selves, to be opened March 8, 2026, exactly one year away. Some prompts we used included: what we want now, what we are feeling now, what we believe we need to do to get there, our predictions, and our best advice. Then we wrapped up by reading Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” in honor of Women’s History Month. We wrote to the prompts: “What is PHENOMENAL about YOU? What is PHENOMENAL about what you do and give to the world?” We are so honored to be a part of this life-changing program.
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: “Nine” and “Gold.” 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!
Red Bank Middle School
- 7th & 8th Grade AVID (in-school)
We read our newest collaborative poems, “Freedom” by Michelle Zhang (the winning piece of last year’s PWN Teen Voice & Verse contest), “Take Care” by Michael D Higgins (in the spirit of Saint Patrick’s Day), and “a poet’s orchid” by Mikaela N. (from Bridge Ink 2.3). We continued working on pieces to submit to our PWN Teen Voice & Verse contest with the help of PWN Teen intern Chloe until we all finally sent our work in together on March 18. We are so proud of our AVID students for sending their writing in before the deadline and working so hard on their submissions. While waiting for the results, we’ve continued writing, leaning into objects that represent greater stories (what we call the “objective correlative”). Every AVID student will be published in the end-of-year anthology.
- PWN Writing Club Grades 4-5 (after-school)
This month the 4th and 5th graders at Red Bank Middle School were very busy writers! Typically, the writers come into class and do a “brain dump.” That means whatever is in their brain, they put into their journals. We tried something a little different this month. We did a “heart dump” so the kids wrote about whatever was in their heart. One student even drew a heart and wrote inside the heart! Additionally, the writers interviewed each other and got to report on one another. They also compiled a list of ways they would make the world better. Some of my favorite ways to make the world better were no animal abuse, kindness and honesty. This session was filled with so much creativity and enthusiasm for the after-school writing program. - PWN Quest Club Grades 6-8 (after-school)
We’ve had so much fun in Quest Club, our after-school program for Red Bank Middle School 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. We read “Tomorrow Home” by 2024 PWN Teen Editorial Assistants (from Bridge Ink 8.5) and then we broke into groups of two to write our own collaborative pieces. We used questions from our Quest Bag as prompts and midway through we switched partners to keep things interesting. We read “My Personal Quest” by Patricia A. Fleming and then we took some key words from the poem and used them as writing prompts, giving ourselves a new word every 2 to 3 minutes. We were thrilled when more than half the group wanted to share, and one student even stood in the middle of the room to perform her piece! We read “Purple” by Sydnee Bowden (from Bridge Ink 8.2), and we wrote our own color-inspired pieces, leaning into the colors we felt most represented how we felt in that moment. We created collaborative verbal stories using stickers to help give us ideas. And today we plan to celebrate our last day together with lots of writing collaboration and treats! Time flies when you’re having fun!
Red Bank Regional High School
We were so excited to participate in RBR’s Staff Mental Wellness day, providing a session on the power of journaling. After sharing some of the benefits of expressive writing, we used the poem “Night at the Roller Palace” by January Gill O’Neil as inspiration, choosing one of the following prompts: What is something you do (or have done) that brings you joy? What does “me” time look like for you? What is something you’ve experienced that you wish you could do all over again? We loved how teachers from all disciplines not only wrote but also shared their writing in community. Thank you to Suzanne Keller and the Source for inviting us to be a part of this wonderful program.
Shore House
In collaboration with the Two River Theater, we are running our second Community Playmaking program with the members of Shore House. We were so grateful to have had Shani Love, Lunch Break’s health & wellness coordinator, join us for a reading of her original play, written in our first Community Playmaking program at Lunch Break. We also read the “Just Keep Swimming” scene from Finding Nemo. We don’t want to give anything away, but many of our new plays will have animal protagonists! We’ve begun writing dialogue for our characters, thinking about their wants and how to complicate those desires. What’s in their way? And we started writing out our scenes. We love the whimsical imaginations of Shore House writers. We were thrilled when Long Branch police stopped by and decided to join us one day and do some writing of their own, too! Stay tuned—at the end of our program, these original plays will be performed by professional actors!
The Source Honoring PWN
We want to wish a heartfelt congratulations to the Source on 25 years of unwavering commitment to the students of Red Bank Regional High School. As a school-based youth services program, the Source is more than just a resource—it’s a lifeline, a safe space, and a steady presence for young people navigating school and life. It was a joy to gather in celebration this month and an honor to be recognized with a Community Partner Award alongside Lunch Break and Attitudes in Reverse. Thank you to Suzanne Keller and the incredible Source team for the care, dedication, and compassion you bring to all you do. The impact you make is immeasurable!
Teacher Writing Collaborative
During our TWC session, we caught up with each other since our session last month and then delved into writing. In honor of Women’s History Month and the start of spring, we read Ada Limón’s “Instructions on Not Giving Up” and wrote off the prompts “What is something you don’t want to give up on?” and “What is something you gave up that you want to start again?” Or we picked a line and wrote from there. We love that the TWC gives us teachers a quiet moment to take a breath and write in community. Our next TWC is Wednesday, April 16. You are welcome to join at any time.
Teen Arts
We had an incredible time at this year’s Teen Arts Festival, a two-day event sponsored by Monmouth Arts that gives teens ages 13-19 opportunities to experience professional critiques in their artistic disciplines. We adjudicated more than 130 pieces of writing from teens from all over Monmouth County. This year’s theme was “Power of Pop,” and the writing certainly popped off the page! We are always in awe of these young, brave writers who trust us with their words. We were also thrilled to host three writing workshops where we used poetry as inspiration to explore new creative works. We love how this event brings artists together in community to celebrate unique voices and talents! Thank you, Monmouth Arts, for including us in this very special event!
Teen Writing Space
Teen Writing Space came to an end (for the session!) this month, with our teen writers working together to polish their submissions to our Voice & Verse Writing Contest. We are so proud of our teen writers. Winners will be announced in April—stay tuned! And Teen Writing Space will be back IN PERSON this summer. Be the first to know when and where by signing up for our newsletter.
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 24 seats totaling $8,254. For information about our scholarship program or to become a valuable donor providing these seats, please email Jennifer Chauhan at jennifer@projectwritenow.org.
Write Out Loud
Our March Write Out Loud focused on the sacred time of seasonal shifts. We read an excerpt from Katherine May’s “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times” and used a related prompt to write about a time of wintering or “temporarily falling between two worlds.” It was amazing to hear the collective similarities in the writing, as well as some unique experiences and stories. Join us at Asbury Book Cooperative for the next Write Out Loud at 6 p.m. on April 8.
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