The post below is the first in our series of submissions from the Long Beach Writers, a group of students in Literacy Workshop classes given by Devon Day at Wilson High School. Victor is a fourteen-year-old freshman at Wilson and also the president of the Long Beach Writers club. I asked Victor if he volunteered to be the president or if he was elected. “Sort of both,” he replied. Victor’s primary goal is to help lead the LBWriters on their planned trip to West Virginia to meet their pen pals. After that he plans on graduating from Wilson with the class of 2011 and then attending a four year college and becoming a stock broker. For now, he is trying to help the club raise $50,000 so he can “learn about their culture in West Virginia, see things we don’t get to see here like barns and farms.” With his enthusiasm for the project and leading his fellow students he should be rolling in the hay come October when they take their trip!
The Long Beach Writers
by Victor, President of the Long Beach Writers, Wilson H.S.
The project all started in December when Mr. Spencer, a teacher in West Virginia, contacted my teacher Ms. Day. They started talking about crazy ideas of how great it would be that we would be able to learn about the many different lifestyles about many other cultures. He then later told her that his kids were going to be writing letters to us. We thought of how cool it would be if we had pen-pals in West Virginia. So we decided that we were all going to have a pen-pal and that we were going to write back them. Out of nowhere we get a crazy idea that if we raise 50,000 dollars we can all go to West Virginia. Everyone agreed and they were all excited.
We also write in our journals. Ms. Day only reads the journals students ask her to read. When we share our stories, they are sometimes pretty emotional. For example, when Dr. Mauricio Heilbron (we call him Dr. Mo) came to Wilson, many students shared stories from their journals. For example, one of my peers shared with us an experience she went through. She had the police break into her house, point a gun at her face screaming at her, while taking away her brother. She began to feel emotional and tears started running down her face when she read this to Dr. Mo and 100 of the Long Beach Writers. It was hard for me to listen to her because it’s unbelievable what many of us teenagers have to go through nowadays.
It is our hope to publish some of the stories from our journals in the Long Beach Post website. Our goal of writing would be reached through publishing. I volunteered to contribute this first article because I like to write and it is easy for me.
Ms. Day mentioned the idea to Mr. Spencer and he thought that it would be a great idea to raise money to send as many students from our group to West Virginia as possible. The main purpose of going to West Virginia was that we can all share about our regional and ethnic cultures with each other. Also there are things we all have in common despite our differences. We can live in many different communities and still experience what many other teenagers have to experienced on a daily basis.
For all this to work out, we have all put in much effort and consideration for this project. So we formed the club “Long Beach Writers” and every Tuesday and Thursday we have a meeting in Ms. Day’s class during lunch. We have also formed many sub-committees so we can engage in fund-raising activities. We also got many of our students’ stories published in the newspaper.
When we get to West Virginia our plans for the week are to be able to visit a farm and work in it, to take some tour buses and go to Washington D.C., stay one night at a local university. Also we plan to take very common but delicious food there and cook a big feast for them. We plan to cook pechuga enchiladas, sopas de fideos, sopas de caracol, sopes, and home-made tortillas and flan. The girls from Long Beach will teach the girls from West Virginia. But for someone to be in this club and be able to participate in all the wonderful and exciting activities, they need to improve their attendance and improve their grades and of course, keep writing.
We are hoping to be regular contributors to the Long Beach Post. Who knows? There might be a businessman or woman out there who could make our project have a fairy tale ending.
You can help send Victor and the other Long Beach Writers to West Virginia to meet their pen pals! To make a donation contact me, or check future posts by the LBWriters for donation information.
Your thoughts welcome, click here to email me or on “Leave A Comment” below for public response.
