Gotta Support the Kids...

There's a community library that serves the area that my job is in called the Village Learning Place (VLP). After they gave a pitch to the brass at my job for support, a couple co-workers had the great idea of working with some of the students in the VLP's LINK program to produce a journal of their writings and art.

A great idea!

From that point several of my co-workers took the lead in organizing a schedule for staff to teach these kids everything about publishing a journal and taking their original writings and creating a published journal called, The Village Review.

The entire process took several months (maybe even a year) and culminated this past Tuesday at a ceremony that recognized the kids and their works and where they were also presented with printed copies of their journal.

I attended the ceremony because I (along with another colleague) played a small part (one training session) in teaching the kids how to use social media (mainly Twitter and Facebook) to raise awareness about the work they had done, their journal's eventual printing, and the ceremony they would be having to recognize this great work they'd put together. The kids put a lot of themselves into their writing and it was cool to learn how many of them used social media and the ways they thought that they could promote all their work. Naturally, they all wanted to alert athletes and celebrities but you'd be surprised how they also quickly grasped the concept of how alerting local officials and organizations could help them and the LINK program in the long-run.

The ceremony was small in terms of attendees but every person that was there had a vested interest in the kids' work or had supported the initiative in some way. There were reporters there from the Baltimore Messenger and apparently the Baltimore Sun as well. The main coordinators on both sides (my job and the VLP) made remarks, each child was recognized and presented with a copy of the journal, my colleagues and I were recognized and (to our surprise) presented with thank you cards and mugs from the kids.

The best part was that each child gave a remark about what putting together this journal meant to them. The kids seemed genuinely proud and happy that their works were being recognized. Hopefully it inspires them to read more, write more, and express themselves in positive ways.