Written by Tyler French

My work with Story Tapestries began in the summer 2018. I joined the team as a teaching assistant, supporting a visual artist to lead Neelsville Middle School students in Germantown, Maryland to design and create two murals for their school. One student in particular, “John,” stands out when I reflect on that summer program. John was incredibly quiet, didn’t engage with many of the other students, and never raised his hand when the group was asked a question. When we brought out the paints to start realizing our design, he worked silently on his corner. Cleaning spilled paint out of my hair (one of the tubes had exploded), I saw John working on his corner of the mural, intensely focused. I stopped and watched while he carefully applied the paint, blending from lavender to a deep purple that pulled me into the piece.

I flashed back to my middle school self as I watched John paint. I recognized his shyness in myself. I recognized his inability to easily engage with his peers, his hesitancy to raise his hand even though he knew the answer to our questions. At the moment, another student was walking behind John, stopped, and asked, “How’d you do that?!” pointing to the gradient purples. From that moment, John became a consultant to other students’ mural sections. He helped others blend their paint, get a clean edge, and troubleshoot issues. I witnessed John become visible to himself, to matter.

Story Tapestries is continuing to serve Neelsville Middle School students as the Lead Partner on a Trawick Foundation TeamUp Grant. Trawick started the TeamUp grants to promote collaboration among nonprofit partners, decrease duplication, and expand resources. Story Tapestries has the pleasure of collaborating with Aspire Counseling, Conflict Resolution Center of Montgomery County, and NAMI MC (all of whom are also Catalogue for Philanthropy partners). Our various programs at the school blend trauma-informed counseling and training, conflict resolution skill building, and arts integration programs for academic supports and social emotional growth. Story Tapestries sees the power artmaking has to open up youth to others and help them express their thoughts and feelings. Working alongside these other nonprofits, we are able to provide additional supports for youth who may have these experiences in our arts-based sessions, and may also benefit from other services including therapy and coaching.

Every time I visit Neelsville Middle School and pass that mural, I see another section of John’s handiwork that I hadn’t noticed before. I always pause and take a moment to remind myself what incredible power arts experiences have for students (and had for me, when I was John’s age). Working in tandem with these partners, I am excited to learn what impact our various programs and services will have for John and other students. As we move toward collecting data for a midyear report, we look forward to the opportunity to reflect with John and other students to start to evaluate not only the individual but also the collective impact of our programs.

If you would like to know more about Story Tapestries’ collaborative framework and the Neelsville mural, or connect about the Trawick Foundation supported collaboration at Neelsville Middle School, please don’t hesitate to email Development Director, Lorienne Beals, at lorienne@storytapestries.org.

Written by Patrick Giblin, Development & Marketing Manager of After-School All-Stars, Washington DC

After-School All-Stars, Washington DC (ASAS DC) is a local charity focused on providing free after-school programs to low-income DC middle schools. A unique element of ASAS DC’s programming is our heavy emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, more affectionately referred to as STEM in the education sector. Across three DC wards and six schools, hundreds of students experience our free STEM offerings in the afterschool space every weeknight. Those offerings include classes such as digital photography, drone engineering, video game design, coding, real estate development and environmental science.

In addition to those classes this year, we have two dedicated “STEM Clubs” at Stuart-Hobson and John Hayden Johnson Middle Schools, where students can engage in purely STEM-related activities. Based on our participants’ interests, “STEM kits” and related curricula were acquired from the National Energy Education Development (NEED). NEED provides ample resources and training for our instructors to create quality STEM classes, and ASAS DC is uniquely positioned to implement the classes, providing it to students who need it the most. All-star’s students have consistently expressed an interest in environmental/conservation topics related to STEM, and as a result several of the NEED STEM kits are focused on alternative energy and environmental science.

ASAS DC sought to provide appropriate complements to these offerings, which is why we engaged with two leading organizations in the field. This past October and November, our chapter hosted two STEM-themed employee volunteer events with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Bechtel, respectively.

Specifically, scientists and education specialists from NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute, Education and Community Involvement Branch visited Stuart-Hobson MS in October. They spent an afternoon with our students, sharing information on their work and completing three hands-on activities designed to educate youth on DNA and science more broadly. Students scraped their cheek cells and examined them under NIH microscopes, they extracted DNA from strawberries using a technique demonstrated by the science professionals, and completed a watercolor activity revolving around the shape and code within a DNA double helix. Fifteen ASAS DC students were exposed to high-level and engaging science subjects; they expressed interest in the scientists’ jobs and showed a desire to work with the microscopes every day!

A consistent aspect of our program has always been career exposure. Regardless of professional sector, it is important that our students are connected to reputable professionals who can not only describe their current work, but also their journey and obstacles they’ve had to overcome in order to be where they are now. Many of our students had not considered the possibility that they could do something like this for a living prior to this NIH engagement, which is why this exposure is invaluable.

Less than a month later, ASAS DC was contacted by the global engineering company Bechtel. Keith Hennessey, president of Bechtel Enterprises, serves on the board of ASAS DC. He also serves as an Executive Sponsor of Women@Bechtel, a business resource group within the company meant to promote the development of women’s careers. Members of this group expressed an interest in skills-based volunteering with underserved youth. What resulted was another successful collaboration in the same style as the NIH event that preceded it — this time dedicated to the engineering portion of STEM.

Four Bechtel engineers presented in front of a group of 15 Stuart-Hobson students in early November. Bechtel Fellow Kit Ng shared a presentation on Bechtel’s water treatment work. The presentation had tremendous resonance with our students who are extremely passionate about climate change issues, and they asked several questions about water filtration systems in the developing world as a result.

To bring this material to life, Bechtel provided a hands-on experiment very similar to NIH. Students split into teams and tested several water filtration techniques using materials brought in by the engineers. Students compared each solution, (grass, pebbles, coffee filters, cloth, etc.) and based on the information presented to them earlier, were able to discern which materials filtered the clearest water. These realizations were related to the earlier presentation of Bechtel doing the same work on a larger scale. With that connection, students had a newfound respect for this work. Not only increasing the quality of life for underserved communities but doing it an efficient and environmentally-friendly manner was of great interest to our youth. Bechtel staff were pleased to see this interest, and several of the students even asked about internships with the organization!

STEM is a complex and nuanced subject matter that lends itself to hands-on work. Any letter in that acronym is associated with high-level and detailed academic information. ASAS DC prides itself on effectively teaching these subjects to adolescent students in an engaging way and age-appropriate way. We cannot do that without the support of our partners and external organizations such as NIH and Bechtel. Not only do they possess the resources and expertise, but their respective staff genuinely care about underserved youth and are happy to volunteer their time in order to convey some of their experience to our students. Most importantly, our students are shown a clear path to success in these fields by having direct access to professionals who are eager to support them. We are humbled to be a part of that collective effort and will continue to use all resources at our disposal to provide the most impactful and highest quality experience to adolescents in the District of Columbia.

Written by Tyler French, Innovation and Partnerships Director of Story Tapestries

On October 5, 2019, a group of family, friends, new acquaintances, and strangers gathered at the Strathmore Mansion. We were there to share in poetry, storytelling, and conversations about race, difference, and connection. Holding together this constellation is the Amplify US! Initiative, a collaboration between Story Tapestries, Arts on the Block and Impact Silver Spring to unite the voices of the past with those of our future in a dynamic series of workshops, performances and community dialogue. Amplify US! is committed to furthering racial equity in Montgomery County by amplifying underrepresented voices, creating platforms for advocacy and connection, and bringing together community members for necessary conversations.

Amplify US! is a community-led initiative and, as such, is difficult to describe to anyone who hasn’t attended. It’s difficult to capture in words the feeling of the room. The conversations were not necessarily easy or without discomfort, but all were warm and caring. They felt urgent and necessary. Every person who showed up was meant to be there. People lingered longer than usual, already late for a Saturday evening. The performances and conversation created a kind of gravitational force and held us there.

Regie Cabico, Story Tapestries Master Teaching Artist, spoken word poet and performer, MCed the evening. He shared the stage with two professional performers, Jenny Lares and Dwyane B. and Story Tapestries youth and community members, Charles Stokes, Glory Egedigwe, Karina Gorham, and Mimi Hassanein. Each read poems or shared stories ranging in topics from immigration to our education system, the legacy of slavery in the United States, and spaces for finding joy and resilience. It was particularly striking to witness Glory’s excitement when she realized Jenny had performed for her when she was younger. Michelle Faulkner-Forson shared an excerpt from an in-process film project about Amplify US!, documenting the impact of these spaces for storytelling and listening.

The second half of an Amplify US! event flips the script, asking audience members to join in by having facilitated conversations with each other. Carolyn Lowery of Impact Silver Spring facilitated the conversations, asking audience members to share with each other answers to questions about racial identity, moments of discomfort or disconnect, and moments of connection. Primed by the performances, audience members leapt into conversation with each other, discussing aspects of their lives rarely shared with strangers. The conversations engaged intergenerational connections across race and nationality and the event spilled over its end time as audience members were reluctant to end their conversations.

Why this urgent need for dialogue?

In 2017, Montgomery County’s Police reported an 26% increase in bias incidents compared to the prior year. Of the incidents reported, roughly half were motivated by bias toward religion and half were motivated by bias toward a race or ethnicity. Story Tapestries took this report as a call to action and collaborated with other local organizations, including the Strathmore and Impact Silver Spring, to call upon our wide networks of concerned individuals to begin meeting and form a Task Force. These community meetings led to the design of what we now call the Amplify US! Initiative.

The statistics highlighted in the Montgomery County Police Department report not only guide the Amplify US! initiative but also filter into our programming across the county. We choose artists in whom youth can see themselves – so we’ve increased the number of male artists involved in these programs to serve as role models and mentors. We’ve also collaborated with organizations that serve the demographics most frequently involved in bias incidents – for example partnering with Latin American Youth Center and their GED program and with the Correctional Facility. Our artistic and administrative staff have been trained to lead dialogue circles and use conflict resolution techniques to support their ability to infuse this aspect into every program we lead and into how we operate and collaborate.

The October 5 performance kicked-off this year’s Amplify US! season. Starting in January, Amplify US! will offer free workshops in communities across Montgomery County. Participants in those workshops will work with artists in multiple art forms and a facilitator to cultivate and share their stories. Similar to the community members described above, those who wish to will have an opportunity to perform in free public performances alongside professional artists after this season’s workshops conclude in Spring 2020.

We want the texture of your voice and your experience to enrich our next conversations. To find out more about upcoming events for Amplify US! and Story Tapestries, please visit our website storytapestries.org – or reach out directly to me at tyler@storytapestries.org.

The October 5 workshop and performance event were made possible by funding from:

Alternate ROOTS

Poets & Writers

Written by Rhonda Lee Thomas, President, DTWT’s Board of Directors

Bullying is an issue very close to the heart of both Do The Write Thing (DTWT) cofounders, Loretta (LoLo) Smith, and myself, Rhonda Lee Thomas.

LoLo, a former teacher, saw firsthand the detrimental effects that being bullied had on child victims, including her own great nieces. They were bullied so badly that their mother withdrew them from a Missouri public school in January 2019 and sent them to DC so LoLo could homeschool them. Instead, LoLo enrolled them in a DC Public School where the principal had established a safe and warm environment for all students. The girls appear in one of DTWT’s kindness/antibullying books along with some of the friends they made in DC.

I faced bullying, racism, and other types of hatred and abuse early in life, growing up in the 1950s in South Dakota, where people of color were scarce. As a lifetime human rights activist, I always speak up against injustice on social media and through kindness/antibullying projects.

Unfortunately for humankind, in 2017, 20% of students age 12-18, reported being bullied at school according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Of students ages 12-18, about 13 percent reported being the subject of rumors; 13 percent reported being made fun of, called names, or insulted; 5 percent reported being pushed, shoved, tripped or spit on; and 5 percent reported being excluded from activities on purpose. Parents, guardians, other teachers, and youth must help to develop strategies to handle bullying, which has serious consequences.

DTWT addresses the issue of bullying by teaching children to be kind to one another. We can change the world with one act of kindness at a time! We observed National Bullying Prevention Month in October by focusing our attention on solutions to the critical problem of bullying. As we do every year, DTWT kicked off our month‑long antibullying activities on the first Monday of October. For example, LoLo and I encourage our youth to perform ten acts of kindness during this month.

We also produce kindness/antibullying books, posters, and other materials with our students. Our personalized books feature DC Public School children dressed in superhero costumes; after all, we are superheroes who fight bullying with kindness! One six-year old girl loved her book so much that she slept with it under her pillow, ate with it at breakfast, and brought it to school every day! Our books are available for public consumption on Amazon, including the following titles:

• Ten Acts of Kindness;
• My American Girl Doll and Me: Superheroes Fighting Bullying with Kindness;
• Superheroes Fight Bullying with Kindness.

This year, on October 5^th, World Day of Bullying Prevention (also called Blue Shirt Day), DTWT students at Plummer Elementary School signed No-Bullying Pledges and posted them on their customized No‑Bullying Pledge Wall:

DTWT’s NO-BULLYING PLEDGE

• I pledge to stop bullying my siblings at home.
• I pledge to stop bullying my classmates at school.
• I pledge to stop bullying my classmates on the playground.
• I pledge to stop bullying on the Internet.
• I pledge to tell an adult when I see someone being bullied.
• I pledge to say no to bullying like a superhero.

DTWT’s efforts to prevent bullying won’t stop tomorrow on October 31^st when National Bullying Prevention Month ends. DTWT continues its bullying prevention efforts throughout the school year. DTWT has developed a unique Kindness Project that we implement year-round at elementary schools. The Kindness Project includes:

• Personalization of a book about kindness
• Independent readers recording the text of the book to create CDs
• A kindness pledge
• Friendship songs
• Group writing stories about kindness
• Reading books about friendship and kindness from a recommended list compiled by the DC Public Library, such as “The Giving Tree,” by Shel Silverstein
• Creating posters with kindness slogans and transferring slogans onto tee shirts and other clothing. Advanced students have the opportunity to walk the runway in a fashion presentation that features girls and dolls in matching clothing with kindness slogans.

This year, Plummer Elementary School students will stage the anti-bullying musical, Corduroy: A Bear In Search of Acceptance and Friendship, during the December holiday season. The musical explores the issues of bullying and the importance of friendship.

DTWT is proud to continue promoting kindness among children during Bullying Prevention Month and year-round!

Visit DTWT’s page at the Catalogue For Philanthropy website.

Written by Laura Beth Williams, OMM Program Manager at Josh Anderson Foundation

On a typical Saturday at 8:00 a.m., if I were to walk into a school building, it would likely be completely empty. On Saturday, October 5th, there were over 60 students who woke up early, organized transportation, and met at Fairfax High School just after sunrise. Why would they do such a thing? These students came together to work on common goals: practicing mindfulness, learning about protective and risk factors, performing coping skills exercises, and engaging in conversations to address the stigma around mental health at the third annual Our Minds Matter (OMM) Teen Summit hosted by the Josh Anderson Foundation.

When planning the annual summit, we wanted to reflect the values and goals OMM. Naturally, this meant the summit should be student-led. Five OMM student leaders facilitated our Mental Health 101 activity and coping skills stations. Seeing the students positively influencing their peers throughout the summit exemplified the importance of amplifying students’ voices and was a special thing to witness.

If you have ever worked with students you know that they can easily become disengaged or distracted. One of the most remarkable aspects of the day spent with these students was seeing how they stayed engaged throughout the entire four-hour summit.

We concluded the day with our guest speaker, Dr. Marc Brackett from the Yale Center of Emotional Intelligence. When adults (especially doctors) speak to teens, they can oftentimes be perceived as a little boring, but not Dr. Brackett. In fact, the students reported that learning “name it to tame it” was one of their favorite parts of the summit. Plus, you always get brownie points for free swag. Especially when it’s a book that teaches you how to unlock the power of emotions to help kids, ourselves, and our society.

Why does any of this matter? Suicide has grown to become the second leading cause of youth deaths in the United States. Teens today are reporting the highest levels of stress, anxiety, and depression than in recent decades. We at the Josh Anderson Foundation believe it is critical to reverse this trend by providing training and material support that empowers student leaders to effectively deliver OMM activities to their peers on topics such as Mental Health 101, Stigma Reduction, Resource Awareness, Healthy Habits and Healthy Mindset.

The OMM model is student-led and is the first of its kind to offer structure and support for the high school population. If it’s anything we are learning as we develop this program, it’s that our kids want to support each other. They care for one another, and sometimes all it takes is providing them with opportunity. We see it every day, and we want as many people to see it as possible.

If you would like to learn more about the OMM program, please visit www.ourmindsmatter.org. To learn more about the Josh Anderson Foundation, visit www.joshandersonfoundation.org.

“I had so much fun and especially loved the guest speaker. The summit left me super inspired and excited for the future of OMM” – Edison High School

“Thank you so much for coming I really needed to hear it” -Oakton High School

Executive Director of the Josh Anderson Foundation, Lauren Anderson, welcoming students.
Photo: Donnie Biggs/Fairfax County Public Schools