Community Spotlight Benjamin Banneker Academy Workshop
There are few things as rewarding as watching young writers concurrently develop their passion and craft. This June we’ll be wrapping up our fourth consecutive year of workshops at Benjamin Banneker Academy (BBA), a high school in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. BBA is in many ways a microcosm of the unique scope and transformative nature of our work, in that it brings together people from vastly different backgrounds to form a community of impassioned writers.
Recently we sat down with our current crop of participants at BBA and asked them a slew of questions ranging from why they started attending the workshop to their overall life goals. Their answers were as multifarious as one could expect from any of our participants regardless of age and life experience. Some began attending because of an already established passion for writing; some because an eagle-eyed teacher encouraged them to do so; some have discovered along the way that they want to be professional writers someday, while some see writing as an enriching hobby. However, the thing that they each have in common is that they’ve all grown as writers, thinkers, and people by attending our workshops. To hear them put it: “I have come out of my shell and am becoming a better writer“; “The community of writers is inclusive and accepting”; “NYWC has helped me move on from the past and look forward to the future”.
We’ve been able to have such consistent and positive results both because of the long-term nature of the workshop and because over the years we’ve been able to provide several specialized instructional initiatives for the students: college essay writing workshops, performance poetry workshops, special guest lectures, and opportunities to produce and edit their own publication. BBA graduates who participated in our workshop have gone on to attend schools like Cornell University and NYU. And what’s more, they partially credit NYWC for their successes, with one graduate stating “because of my work in this workshop, I was able to get into one of the top universities in the country, which is something I will be eternally grateful for.”
So if you care about helping young writers discover and become their best selves, please donate to NYWC during our Spring Membership Drive. For so many reasons, it’s a critical time for organizations like us and your help will ensure that we’re able to keep creating long-term positive impacts at sites like BBA for a long time to come. Recurring donations are a great way to ensure that your generosity has a far-reaching and continuous impact while keeping your costs low.
Please click the button below to donate to our Spring Membership Drive.
