Pongo Partners with You Grow Girl! for 2021 Spring Pilot
Pongo is proud to announce the launch of a poetry partnership with You Grow Girl! , a Seattle-based nonprofit empowering girls and young women of color through comprehensive support services, career-focused mentoring, leadership development, and an array of behavioral health services.
Our two organizations have broken ground collaborating together in our after school, Spring 2021 pilot program, Rise Above!
Tuesday afternoons, six sisters referred from schools around King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties, join on Zoom and write with a small team of Poetry Mentors, including new and veteran Pongo pals and Pongo-trained You Grow Girl! staff.
Here’s a sample agenda of our daily activities together:
3:15-4:00pm: Ongoing Training and Collaboration Between Mentors
4:00-4:30pm: Sister Participants Assemble; share poetry
4:30-5:05pm: One-on-one Poetry Writing Sessions
5:05-5:25: Sisters Sign Writer’s Releases; share poetry
5:25-5:30: Send Off with quote from Badass Black Girl
Our Rise Above! Pilot Project will run for 7 weeks, between March 2nd-April 20th, 2021. Wonderful poetry has already been produced from our courageous Sisterhood. Read one such example below–a perfect way to wish readers a Happy Women’s Month, March 2021:
All the Good Things That a Woman Can Do
by Amori, age 13
A woman is a person who works and who takes care of her family
I experience being a woman and think that it’s hard for us
and I think that I can do a whole bunch of things
like acting and dancing.
Not only is a woman —and I am amazing—
we can accomplish
many things in our life
We can be the first vice-president of the United States
That is amazing that an African-American woman
is the vice-president!
We also can be scientists
who send rockets into space
and surgeons that can help people survive
We can have babies and take care of them day to day
and when they are all grown up and they have children
and we can become grandmothers
At thirteen, I already get good grades
I try my hardest at anything I do
and if people decide they don’t like me,
I just ignore them
and I know that I’m amazing and that I’m smart
and I can do really good in life
Dedicated to my family and to Ms. Gennarose
Rise Above! Spring 2021