Community Engagement: CLC and Poudre Libraries partner for new exhibition
A new exhibition at the Old Town branch of Poudre Library represents the creative prowess of the hundreds of writers and artists who have participated in SpeakOut! community writing workshops since 2005. The words and artwork featured crisscross human experiences with expressions of love, loss, challenge, hope, and curiosity.
“We’re right at home in Old Town Poudre Library’s gallery space on the second floor – this warm space where community gathers,” said Mary Ellen Sanger, associate director of the CLC. “It echoes perfectly the creativity and community that is at the core of the writing circles formed each week between student and community facilitators and local writers/artists in crisis.”
The exhibition will be displayed on the second floor of the library through January 25, 2025. Be sure to check it out!
About the Community Literacy Center
The Community Literacy Center creates and facilitates literacy opportunities that invite community members—particularly people experiencing confinement or in recovery—to engage in innovative and supportive writing spaces and to value the writing and art that emerges through conversation and circulation.
We share the Community Literacy Journal’s definition of community literacy as “the domain for literacy that exists outside of mainstream educational and work institutions.” We aim to make space for diverse stories and to listen actively as a way to promote community action and social change. We seek to create opportunities for people to write individually and in collaboration with others as they strengthen their reading, writing and critical thinking skills. We invite participants—writers and volunteer facilitators—to contribute to our public and academic efforts to encourage a kinder, more inclusive world by embracing stories that move within and beyond the norms of mainstream culture.
About SpeakOut!
CSU’s SpeakOut! program works through the Community Literacy Center of the College of Liberal Arts and Department of English to bring writing workshops to people at crisis centers in the community. Each week, teams of CSU students and community volunteers sit for 60-minute sessions to guide confined writers whose only creative outlet might be their time with the SpeakOut! program.