Performing for Change is Preparing for the Youth Leadership Academy / Writing Our Lives Event with Upward Bound @FairfieldU @OfficialDLDay

Performing for Change, 2014

On January 31st, in recognition of Martin Luther King celebrations on Fairfield University's campus, members of the Performing for Change group will be sharing their work on Words Matter! Stories Matter! Writing For Our Life at the Oak Room of the Barone Campus Center for several middle school students invited to the campus for the day.

With themes of: Writing to Express, Writing to Entertain, and Writing to Change The World, these undergraduate students will enhance the power of words and the importance of written communication to the young people from Bridgeport middle schools.

Following the 2013 Writing Our Lives-Bridgeport event sponsored by Bank of America, this Fairfield University occasion will be a Friday for creative and intellectual knowledge the morning after the MLK Convocation on campus, featuring keynote, Will Haygood, author of The Butler.

Since 2011, I've read about Performing for Change and heard many of their previous performers do their 'thang.' Last summer, Emily Sawyer, a 5-year student in GSEAP's Educational Studies and Teacher Preparation program, assisted CWP-Fairfield's Young Writers' Institutes on campus. It was wonderful to work with her and, now with her troupe and Upward Bound, the Writing Our Lives event is ready to go!

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Armed with 150 writer's notebooks, the young people from Bridgeport City Schools will spend the day planting seeds of possibilities with their writing in celebration of civil rights, excellence for all youth, and the importance of telling stories.