Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
Community Impact This course will be offered solely to the adult men currently incarcerated at <br />Orange Correctional Center (OCC) in Hillsborough, NC. This population is <br />highly diverse racially and ethnically, and ranges in age from late teens to <br />70s. The course will not require formal enrollment; rather, inmates will <br />participate on an ongoing volunteer basis. Based on my initial workshop <br />turnout, and what OCC Chaplain Josh LeRoy has discerned, I expect 15- <br />40 participants per class. <br />Artist Experience I started teaching workshops on healing trauma through poetry in August <br />2022, after being invited to do so by the Durham Chapter of the National <br />Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). This was part of an ongoing series of <br />arts workshops that NAMI hosts for the NC Triangle, and my workshop was <br />the first of its kind. W e expected a handful of participants; instead, over 30 <br />people joined virtually. Many of them had never written poetry before. <br />Participants expressed the deep relief they experienced through the <br />process of writing and sharing about their trauma in a supportive group. <br />Afterwards, NAMI Durham’s Special Programs Coordinator Nora Dicker <br />shared with me that no arts workshop had ever been so well attended. This <br />indicated to me that there is a deep need in our community to express <br />difficult experiences beyond typically available resources, such as <br />psychotherapy, religious organizations, and social media. I have since <br />taught similar workshops for Piedmont Friends Yearly Meeting & Fellowship <br />annual retreat at Guilford College and for the Orange County Arts <br />Commission at the Eno Arts Mill and have experienced similar positive <br />outcomes for participants. <br />In January 2023, I was invited by Sally Freeman from the Alamance <br />Orange Prison Ministry to teach a workshop on healing trauma through <br />writing poetry to the inmates at the Orange Correctional Center (OCC). The <br />workshop was attended by about 30 inmates, which was a remarkable <br />turnout, according to Chaplain Josh LeRoy, who supervises special <br />programs at OCC. I spent two hours with the men, helping them write about <br />personal trauma through a variety of writing prompts. Many of them shared <br />personal experiences with our group that they had never shared with <br />anyone else. Many openly expressed grief and were supported with deep <br />compassion by the group. Many stated afterwards that they had gotten to <br />know their fellow inmates better through that one workshop than they had <br />through years-long acquaintance. The overwhelming majority said that they <br />wanted to continue this work. The development of the creative writing <br />course I have outlined in this proposal is my response to that plea. <br />How do you plan to <br />market your project? <br />The creative writing course will be advertised to inmates at the Orange <br />Correctional Center (OCC) by flyers placed around the prison as well as <br />verbal announcements by Chaplain Josh LeRoy, who interacts with <br />inmates on a daily basis. <br />PROJECT/PROGRAM <br />BUDGET <br />Please fill out the charts below with your project's expenses and income. <br />Use the "Explanation" box to offer details for each category. NOTE: The <br />Total Cash Expense must equal the Total Cash Income. <br />Budgeted Expense <br />Expenses-english-rev ised.xlsx <br />DocuSign Envelope ID: 0CC5A806-DAB8-46FC-8D7C-E83165B71C02