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Project/Program <br />Summary <br />Anxiety and grief about the climate crisis are creeping more into our daily <br />lives. Even if we aren’t directly impacted by a climate disaster, we feel <br />rising temperatures, see more fires and stronger hurricanes. W e know that <br />the tipping point for being able to help the planet is getting closer. W ith all <br />of these realities, it’s normal to have responses of fear, sadness, and <br />anxiety. It’s important to not only acknowledge those feelings, but also to <br />encourage ways of coping with them. Poetry and writing can help ease <br />those emotions and position us to be more easily able to regulate <br />ourselves, speak out, and take action. <br />This project will involve 15 to 20 teenagers in writing and conversation <br />about their thoughts, feelings, and concerns about the climate crisis and <br />about hope. W e will imagine new possibilities for our planet, our world, and <br />our communities. W e will write poetry of hope for how a positive future <br />might look. Holding hope is not only important for our mental-emotional <br />health, but it also allows us to take action toward something new. This <br />project will allow participants to explore their thoughts and feelings about <br />the climate crisis and to use their voices to speak up for hope regarding <br />the crisis. <br />I will invite 15 to 20 (aiming for 20) youth poets from Orange County to <br />participate in a 3 hour workshop about having and maintaining hope in the <br />climate crisis. It will include small and large group conversation, poetry <br />writing to prompts, and poetry sharing. Each poet will also practice using a <br />microphone and speaking into the microphone during the workshop as <br />preparation for the evening poetry reading. <br />Youth poets will then go home and work on revising their poems and will <br />send them back to me to be assembled into a zine titled: Poems for Hope in <br />the Climate Crisis. This workshop will take place in one of the Century <br />Center classrooms, in one of the classrooms of the new library in Carrboro, <br />or in the Carrboro Civic Center. There will then be a reading of those <br />poems which will be advertised with the Town of Carrboro and in the <br />community and in the schools. The youth poets will read their poems at a <br />reception that will include a Question and Answer/Discussion time <br />afterwards. This reading will take place at the new library in Carrboro, at <br />the Carrboro Century Center, or the Carrboro Civic Center and will be open <br />to the public. As the Carrboro Poet Laureate, I have access to community <br />spaces when available and can reserve them for the program. <br />The writing workshop will take place one Saturday afternoon from 1:00- <br />4:00 and then the reading will be either the next Friday or Saturday evening <br />or the next after that. I will coordinate with teachers and personnel from <br />high schools in Orange County to involve interested students and will <br />coordinate times and spaces with the Town of Carrboro. These two events <br />will take place sometime between November 2024 and April 2025. <br />Docusign Envelope ID: 9AFB14FC-4173-463B-85A6-C5C5356764BD