September Community Outreach
Dear Friends of Project Write Now:
This month is all about gratitude, and we have so much to be thankful for—starting with YOU, our community.
Last month, you not only showed up for our 11th Anniversary Community Celebration, but you also helped us launch our $11,000 by 11/11 campaign, raising essential funds for our community outreach programs, which are needed now more than ever. Thanks to you, we reached 94 percent of our goal!
Next week, we’ll continue the momentum with Giving Tuesday and our Annual Campaign, but for now we just want to say THANK YOU!
Thank you for trusting us with your hearts, your words, and your journeys.
So many of us are facing challenges and struggles right now, but we are grateful to create spaces where we can come as we are, take a breath, and feel more connected and hopeful.
One of our adult participants recently shared this note about our weekly writing sessions:
“It has become one of my favorite activities of the week. It feels safe, accessible, chill, and nourishing … It’s a time for me! Something I was craving and need more of.”
Messages like this remind us why we do this work—and why your support matters so much!
We would also like to thank our incredible PWN Team—our staff, instructors, volunteers, teen ambassadors, and board members. Thank you for the passion, creativity, and care you bring to this work every single day.
They say “it takes a village,” and we are grateful to all of you for being part of our community!
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.
The Art of Social Justice: EmpowerED
We were thrilled to kick off our 2025-2026 Art of Social Justice: EmpowerED programming with a special Friday dedicated to educators, in collaboration with the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center and Two River Theater. We started off our day at the T. Thomas Cultural Center with guest speaker Melissa Ziobro, director of public history at Monmouth University, who shared the rich history of Fort Monmouth, including the contributions of Dr. Walter McAfee. Then we headed to Two River Theater for lunch and an inspiring conversation with playwright Ngozi Anyanwu about her play The Monsters: A Sibling Love Story, which ran recently at the Two River Theater. The day culminated in reflective writing pulling together all of the day’s themes. Our next date is Friday, February 20—join us!
Catsbury Park – Cat Tales
Cat-loving creatives gathered at Catsbury Park for Cat Tales—writing with and inspired by cats! We gathered in the cat room and used the (25!) cats as insPURRation for our stories and poems. One cat (Liam) was so excited about our presence that he knocked a matcha latte out of our instructor’s hands! We called him Matcha Cat for the rest of the evening and his eager energy inspired many new pieces. We read “Things That Happened During Petsitting That I Remind Myself Are Not Metaphors for My Heart” by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz and “The Naming of Cats” by T. S. Eliot and used the poems as prompts for new original pieces, too. We laughed as the cats walked over our pages and keyboards as we wrote—as much inspiring as hindering our work. We are so grateful to all who came out for this event and look forward to more classes in partnership with Catsbury Park in the future. (All proceeds for Cat Tales benefit Catsbury Park.)
Firefly: Stories Out Loud
A special evening of community and connection, our monsters-themed Firefly: Stories Out Loud event at Two River Theater didn’t disappoint! This was our first time sharing the stage and theme with the theater’s production—The Monsters: A Sibling Love Story. Huge thanks to our featured storytellers (listed in order of appearance): Jennifer Devi Chauhan, Dennis Chambers, and Jessica Varian Carroll & Jennifer Tuma-Young. Great job to all of the brave souls who blessed the mic and shared a true, five-minute-long, first-person story on the topic. If you’d like to catch the next show, mark your calendars for March 24, 2026.
Lunch Break – Community Playmaking
We are deep in the writing stage of our collaborative playwriting program with participants from Lunch Break. So many incredible ideas are emerging on the page and we cannot wait to see these stories performed by professional actors on Monday, December 15, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., at Lunch Break. We are so grateful to the Two River Theater for inviting us to be part of this program. All are welcome to attend. RSVP here.
Lunchtime Write-In (In-Person)
After two months of weekly lunchtime write-in sessions with a group of local women who are unhoused, we wrapped up with some fun wordplay— including a writearound, word circle, and writing on shells with acrylic markers. It means so much to know what this time has meant for all of the participants, going far beyond written or spoken words, but also creating a sense of inclusion and belonging. We are so grateful for this opportunity and look forward to resuming in the new year.
Lunchtime Write-In (Virtual)
Every Friday, writers meet on Zoom to write and share our stories. This month, we explored the themes: “Teeth,” “Piece,” and “Horse.” We love the writing community that has formed in this weekly group. 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 December’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!
Poetry & Plants
We packed the greenhouse at Kula Urban Farm in Asbury Park, NJ for the special Daylight Saving Time edition of Poetry & Plants. This was the unofficial three-year anniversary of this free, seasonal community offering. The event started with peak sunshine and warmth, a hot and cold cider station, and a check-in. We had a communal conversation about some of the things we like and dislike about Daylight Saving Time, including what the plants must think, then used some of the themes as writing prompts. After group sharing, we gave away four door prizes—two plants and two T-shirts—and closed with an open mic. The sense of community was palpable, as folks from all over united to take some breaths, write, and share together in this cozy corner of the city. We are super grateful for our continuous partnership with Kula, as well as the community’s interest in sharing another Sunday Funday together. Thank you to all who came out and spent your bonus hour with us!
Red Bank Middle School AVID
Our 8th grade AVID students have been hyper-focused on their personal statements to get into academies at RBR and other schools. We have been helping them shape their essays into something that really represents them as a whole and we are hopeful that we will get lots of acceptances. Our 7th grade AVID students have read “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros, an excerpt from The House on Mango Street, and written about their names and what they have named. They’ve also read “When Giving Is All We Have” by Alberto Ríos and made gratitude lists, then wrote stories about items on their lists. Both classes have written letters of gratitude to notable people in their lives.
Red Bank Middle School Play It Forward Singing & Songwriting
Where does the time go? We’re nearly done with our fall community outreach songwriting program, Play It Forward. Just one more session to finish up our group song! The music students from Red Bank Regional have been doing a great job sharing what they know about writing songs with 4th and 5th grade students from Red Bank Middle School. We’ve all been having a great time hanging out at the historic Woman’s Club in downtown Red Bank, brainstorming and working out exactly what we want to say—as well as our melodic phrasing, and rhyme scheme—and we’re really happy with the progress we’ve made on our first song, which is about feeling somewhat lost in a busy city that never sleeps. Onward!
Red Bank Middle School PWN Creative Expression Club
In our PWN Creative Expression Club, an after-school program for 6th-8th graders at Red Bank Middle School, we used music as writing inspiration. We took song requests from our students and then played each song while they wrote, letting the lyrics, the melody, the sound inspire their words. We read “Abstract with Red Square” by Jenny Xie and looked at the art that inspired the poem—”i) Untitled (Abstract with red Square) ii) Yellow, Red, Blue And Green iii) Egyptian Symbol” by Etel Adnan. We practiced ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by art) by making lists of what that same art evoked in each of us. We made thankful hand turkeys and wrote about what we are grateful for. And we continued other forms of creative expression by art journaling, using cutouts from magazines and newspapers to make art.
Red Bank Public Library – Novel November
We had so much fun at the Red Bank Public Library for Novel November: For Teens. We had three writing stations with a multitude of writing prompts and inspiration—a station for fiction, for nonfiction, and one to really tap into sensory details. Teens joined us to write and share ideas, then we shared our projects out loud for the group at the end of the night. It was a blast! We look forward to more events in partnership with the Red Bank Public Library. Stay tuned!
Red Bank Regional ML Class
We were back with the Multi-Language class at Red Bank Regional this month, leaning into gratitude. We read “When Giving Is All We Have” by Alberto Ríos both in English & in Spanish, and then we made our own gratitude lists, being sure to add details as to why we are grateful for each item. Our lists included people, animals & pets, places (both real & imagined), things, activities & hobbies, seasons & holidays, and moments & memories. Most students shared about how thankful they are for their families. Then we came back and read (in both Spanish & English) “Meta” By Rev. Robin G. White. We went back to our gratitude lists and selected one person that we wanted to write letters of thanks to. We sealed our letters to send them off into the world. We are so grateful for these students!
Red Bank Regional – Outside the Box Journaling & Art Club
Our Outside the Box session invited RBR students to press pause. Before the rush of holidays and just ending the marking period, the room became a space for honest reflection. Students created their own progress reports, not based on grades, but on the things that shape their days, sleep, friendships, effort, focus, self-care, resilience. Quiet writing soon turned into thoughtful conversation as we mixed and moved, pairing up to share our insights. What emerged was powerful: “I’m proud of myself for making new friends.” “I want to give more time to my homework.” “I’m learning to balance everything.” These moments remind us that writing isn’t just expression, it’s clarity, connection, and community. And this month, our RBR students felt all three and more. It was a beautiful reminder of the power of writing and why giving students space to reflect matters so much.
Shore House
We have begun deeply tapping into our senses this month at Shore House. After a quick sound bowl meditation, we read “How to Eat a Poem” by Eve Merriam to set the tone. Then we picked one flavor to try from four different options we provided—chocolate, lollipops, saltine crackers, or graham crackers. With each item we picked, we were mindful of how it evoked our senses. We made lists of what the item looked like, felt like, smelled like, sounded like, and lastly, what it tasted like. Then we used those lists to come up with new original poems and stories. We had a blast writing (and eating) together!
Teacher Writing Collaborative
Every month, on a Wednesday evening, a group of educators meets on Zoom to take a breath and connect through writing and sharing. For November, we read the poem “Meta” by Reverend Robin G. White and used it as inspiration to write. We had a new participant who shared at the end how energizing and inspiring our session was, which is exactly what this group is all about. Join us for our December 17 session. All educators are welcome!
Teen Writing Space
We concluded our fall session of Teen Writing Space with nine teen writers popping in and out each week to write and share their words together. A few writers Zoomed in from different time zones, one from Bangladesh! We greatly admire their passion and commitment toward writing and each other. Join us for our next session of Teen Writing Space beginning January 15!
Write Out Loud
Our November Write Out Loud fell on 11/11, which was Veteran’s Day. Participants discussed the significance of what the day meant to them—from remembering relatives who served in the military to sharing serendipitous synchronicity stories. We read the poem “The Cosmic Nudge” (author unknown) and used it as inspiration to write about memories of magical moments. An alternative prompt was to write to or about appreciating veterans. We closed out with an open mic-style sharing. Thanks to everyone who attended and everyone who brought goods as contributions toward Asbury Book Cooperative’s collection of nonperishable foods and hygiene products for community members in need. Join us for our next Write Out Loud on December 9!
YMCA (Red Bank)
We closed out our writing workshop at the Red Bank YMCA this month with a focus on gratitude. We read “When Giving Is All We Have” by Alberto Ríos and then made a list of the people, places, and things we are most grateful for. We also read “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and wrote letters of gratitude to notable people in our lives. We have loved working with the Red Bank YMCA and look forward to doing more together!
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. This year, we’ve 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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