Final Free Minds

Look at that crowd!

Tuesday was my last Write Night as Volunteer Coordinator at Free Minds. We had a spectacular turn out at our new GW location. Over the past 2+ years, I've seen Write Night morph from 8 friends in a church kitchen writing feedback on poems to over 50 people in a university lecture hall and a database of over 600 volunteers.  The feedback our volunteers write to our poets gives them concrete evidence that they have a support system (no matter how small, distant or different they may be) who believe that they can contribute positively to the community. 

While I think everything Free Minds does is wonderful, I've been most impressed by their relatively new initiative of hiring their members who have returned to the community to do outreach and violence prevention with youth (often like themselves) that are most vulnerable to getting swept up in the system. We need more programs like this!!!

Free Minds family

Tara, the co-founder and executive director, made me promise in front of all 50 volunteers that I would bring Free Minds to Ohio. Cincinnati, ya ready? 

New volunteer coordinator Seana, me and the amazing (and crazy!) Tara.

A meeting of two worlds

Free Minds came to Capital City for on On the Same Page event as part of the 7th grade humanities expedition.  It was amazing.

I am a huge Free Minds supporter but have never actually seen them in action during On the Same Page and it was pure magic.  Tara, the executive director, started by talking about "Glen" the founding Free Minds member.  Next were the guys sharing their stories mixed with poetry reading.  The guys were so engaging and open that they had every student staring and listening in amazement.  The students were encouraged to read along in their literary journals and I saw students who "don't read" with their eyes glued to the page.  Students opened their minds and shared some deep thoughts on poetry and meaning as well.  It was truly amazing to see the power of a positive male role model.

At the end of the session together, we shared a toast for change (from Freedom Writers Diary) where all of the students received a champagne glass with sparkling cider and made a toast saying what they would change about the world or themselves.  After hearing the guys tell them how important school is,  many students made a pledge to take school more seriously.  The students have been buzzing about the visit ever since and continually ask my about my experience working at the jail and beg me to ask the guys back.  It was an amazing experience.  I hope to have them come to school for PD next year to talk about the school and prison pipeline.

Free Minds Update

Since abandoning learntoseeart back in November, so much Free Minds news has occurred it will hard to summarize it all.  Here goes my best effort:

Through a Free Minds community sing-a-long with a Silver Spring community group, I reunited with one of my most favorite and talented students.  He is back in the city and doing extremely well, finishing his high school diploma and working for a marketing company.

We had an amazing turnout for our November Write Night, such a big turn out in fact, we are starting to look for other venues to hold all of our amazing volunteers.  I love seeing our dedicated fans who come every single month as well as brand new supporters.  It is unbelievable the community we have built.

After Write Night, one of our volunteers, Marie LeBlanc, wrote a blog post for the Catalogue for Philanthropy describing her experience.  You can read it by clicking here.

In December, we were featured in the Washington Post (click here) and Tara Libert, the executive director, co-founder, and fearless leader of Free Minds won the prestigious Linowes Leadership Award from the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region!!  Tara is such an amazing leader and is totally deserving of this award that goes to "unsung heroes" who are actively making an impact through their leadership courage and commitment.  Congrats!

Lastly, Campaign for Youth Justice threw a holiday party/book drive to benefit Free Minds.  Our goal was to reach $2500 and by the end of the night, we had reached and exceeded our goal!! It was a great event.  I attended and spread the good word by collecting volunteer info and selling literary journals.

Taken from Facebook, photo credits to Capital Media USA

FM Update

Free Minds has been blowing up lately!  I went to a Free Minds fundraiser (pictured here), Free Minds did a "Poetry in Motion" event at Howard University and Write Night was last week.  Lots of new people came out to support the burgeoning poets. Even if you are not in the DC area, you can support the young men of Free Minds by leaving a comment on the FM blog:

 http://freemindsbookclub.wordpress.com/

FM dream team

Here is one of my favorite poems by DC:

Torment
In the inside I'm deformed
Out of order
Wishing I could be reborn
This pain that follows me
This trouble, always acknowledging me.
Trying to find a way out
But every time I look,
This pain hide my escape route.
From my head to my feet.
Numb me, o I can go to sleep.
My eye's are open
But I can't see
'Cause the pain is on my face blinding me.
It hurts, it stings, it' sore, it burns.
It covers my future
It dims my light
The pain that I receive.
From living this life.

Congrats to Free Minds!

Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop was honored last week with the Mayor's Art Award for Outstanding Contribution to Arts Education!  Congrats Free Minds you deserve it!

Next Tuesday will be our next Free Minds Volunteer Write Night. If you are a blog reader in the DC area, you should come!

Write Night: Holiday Edition

Another fun pre-2012 event was the Free Minds Writing Book Club and Writing Workshop Write Night: Holiday Edition. I have written about Free Minds before, I think they are amazing! On Dec 13, about 30 Free Minds supporters, members, and friends met at Free Minds HQ in Dupont to write holiday messages for the young men in Free Minds. We also wrote comments on their poems and as always I added some notes to my former students and small pictures illustrating their poems. While I don't have a picture from this particular Write Night (again, my camera is broken) I do have a picture from an earlier Write Night.

Inspiration

Speaking of other hats, another group I am a part of is the Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop. Free Minds is an incredible organization that I learned about through my work at the Incarcerated Youth Program. Free Minds builds literacy with incarcerated youth in the DC Jail by involving the youth in reading for pleasure, meeting reknowned writers, and producing creative writing. Free Minds is one of the most amazing groups out there working with our youth. Here is an image of one of the Free Minds members reciting some spoken word for a fundraiser @ Local 16.

Recently, Free Minds used my artwork as a point of inspiration for their poets. They posted my the poem on their writing blog here. One in particular stuck me, so I thought I would share it below:

Title: I had the Choice

Bound, tied down, held against my will.

Trapped by my own words,

Bound by my own actions,

Tied for my own choice,

But I had the choice so was it against my will?

Was I forced here?

No.

I freely tie my own hands,

I freely gave another person the privilege to judge me,

So am I really trapped or freed when my choices changed.