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NEWS
RELEASES
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Program Descriptions
Classic Program
Senior Focus
Crossing Borders
Patricia
Andres
Classics: Used and Rare Books, Trenton, NJ.
Community residents and employees.
Lawrence Plaza, Lawrenceville, NJ.
Senior residents.
Quote: "Stories
are important. It is, after all, in the narrative dimension that we create
the self, the character, who journeys in the world. Yet always underlying
(and sometimes breaking through) is that wordless, nameless dimension that
I think Emily Dickinson refers to when she writes: 'Hope is the thing with
feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune without the
words, And never stops at all.' In literature we find language
pouring out from, even straining to name that source. Reflecting and
sharing with people on this level brings tremendous joy, energy,
possibility."
Harry Clark
Lawrence Senior Center,
Lawrenceville, NJ. Senior community members.
Stephanie Hanzel Cohen
Bo Robinson Education and Training
Center, Trenton, NJ. Women
in minimum security, correctional facility.
Bo Robinson Education and
Training Center, Trenton, NJ. Men in minimum security,
correctional facility.
Araceli Ortiz de
Urbina
Fleury-Mérogis prison,
South of Paris,
France – the largest prison in Europe with 4000 inmates.
Angela Fajardo
Carter-Burden Center for the Aging,
NY, NY. Senior citizens.
Scott
Feifer
Lancaster County Library,
Lancaster, PA. Members and residents of various organizations,
including homeless centers, rehabilitation centers, ESL classes, etc.
Quote: “I
love that People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos allows us to use the
stories we read and those we’ve lived in order to see our lives with
greater clarity and meaning, to gain confidence in lifting our voices and
sharing our ideas, to learn from our lived experiences, and to listen
to and learn from one another. I love that each participant brings
new insights and perspectives to our
discussions. No story ever feels fixed or finished, and so we
realize that neither must we.”
Chris
Hill
Family House Now,
Philadelphia, PA.
Women residents in drug rehabilitation program.
Quote: "Every People & Stories session finds me pleasantly
surprised in some new, often profound way. Personal anecdotes
combine with literary texts to form an hour and a half that alternately
makes me laugh out loud and cry inside. That I receive this gift
from people who all too often are shunned by society is my true
reward. Recently, when I expressed the hope that I had imparted my
own real love of reading to the group, one of the participants responded,
'Chris, that's the easy part of what you've done. You and your
stories make us feel like regular folk. That's the real deal.'
What more could I or People & Stories ask?"
Anndee
Hochman
Interim
House, Philadelphia, PA. Women residents in drug
rehabilitation program.
Quote: "After
discussing stories by Langston Hughes, Toni Cade Bambara and Raymond Carver
with women who are former substance abusers, I am ever more convinced that
literature WORKS-that is, it engages our senses, yanks our hearts,
challenges our assumptions and sweeps a path for change. When we explore a
story together, gently and persistently nudging deep into the text and our
responses to it, we cannot help but be enlarged."
Cedric Johnson
Essex County College,
Newark, NJ. Formerly incarcerated
young adults and adults enrolled in job training and educations courses.
Patrick Keenan
Rescue Mission,
Trenton, NJ. Men in transition from incarceration.
Gina
Kolata
Elm Court,
Princeton, NJ.
Seniors in affordable housing community.
Christopher Lesser
Brooklyn YWCA,
Brooklyn, NY. Women from the Judson Post Hall Residence.
Lawrence
McCarty
Women of Change,
Philadelphia, PA. Women with mental illness in residential
program..
Project HOME,
Philadelphia, PA. Adult Basic Education (ABE) students in program for
the formerly homeless.
Quote: "As
we gather together to read and discuss stories with open minds to the
literary experience, we discover that each session becomes a creative act
in itself. Key to our process is listening with respect, hearing the
other's point of view and trusting our own voice.
We learn to see ourselves in the text and in the life experiences of
others from different cultures. The clarity, contrasts and beauty that we
discover in imaginative writers spark our own imagination with a spirit of
wonder as we share our reflections on the infinite variety of life."
Mary Reath
Operation
Fatherhood, Trenton, NJ. Adult Basic Education (pre-GED)
students.
Katia Salomon
Foyer Rural,
Saramon, France (rural south west), members of the local community.
Aînés
Ruraux,
Saramon, France, Center for the “country elders.”
Quote: "After my experience of reading in the Fleury
Mérogis prison I was wondering what impact my sessions of “Gens et
Récits” could be in this country setting. I have discovered that reading
and discussing short stories takes the country elders out of their
houses where they might be sitting alone watching TV and, in the
sessions with the Foyer Rural, they bring together people who never
crossed paths – the native Gersois and a Polish or German immigrant.
Recently, a story by Le Clézio, “Orlamonde”, not only made for a good
discussion, but also prompted several participants to bring in personal
“gifts”: a photo of a sunset, a Haiku poem to extend the bond created by
our common literary experience."
Pat Smith
Architects' Housing,
Trenton, NJ. Low-income seniors.
Vessels of Praise, Trenton, NJ. Youth in creativity
development group.
Allison Daley Stevenson
NJ Youth Corp
of Trenton, Trenton, NJ.
At-risk youth participating in GED and vocational-training programs.
Life Ties, Trenton, NJ. Youth in crisis.
Diane Wilfrid
Rescue Mission,
Trenton, NJ. Men in transition from incarceration.
Quote: "The best story of all is the one that unfolds as the
People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos group becomes a community. Fears and
suspicion dissipate, confidence builds, engagement leads to enthusiasm,
and warmth and humor envelope all participants. With each story,
participants share life experiences through the characters in the
stories and with the community of readers sitting next to them. We
relish the challenge to discover the truth hidden among the written
words, the voice that connects us all to the larger human struggle, and
the empathy and understanding that enriches our lives. By sharing
stories, we share ourselves."
Carlos Azari
Jewish Community Center,
Staten Island, NY. Latino men and women from the Staten Island
community.
Desirée Azari
Coalition for Hispanic Services,
Brooklyn, NY. Latino parents.
Alma Concepción
Maura Clarke /
Ida Ford Center, Brooklyn, NY. Latinas and Asians enrolled in
ESL classes. Bi-lingual program.
Quote: "I
have been working as coordinator for Gente y Cuentos, the Spanish
component of People and Stories, since 1991. I have always felt that
my 'voice' in the GyC program is tied to grassroots projects where there
have been enthusiastic and juicy discussions because of the great number
of countries represented. In my last session, there were
participants from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia,
Perú,
Bolivia and Spain. I hope the Gente y Cuentos component continues to
strengthen."
Renato Gómez
New Life Child Development Center
(Head Start Program), Brooklyn,
NY. Latino parents.
Raúl Hurtado
Make The Road, NY,
Brooklyn, NY. Latino participants with mixed Spanish literacy.
Marguerite Lukes
The Family Welcome Center,
Bronx, NY. Spanish literacy students.
Quote:
"As someone who has had the privilege of having been exposed to
great literature all my life, I found myself humbled by the knowledge
and sophistication that the adult participants brought to the People and
Stories sessions. Though most of the group were just learning to write
their names, they infused each story with a richness of life experience
and level of analysis that taught me that a real power of great
literature is what the reader (or in their case, the listener) brings to
it. "
Angelica
Mariani
Princeton Public
Library, Princeton, NJ. Grassroots Latinos.
María Cristina Marrero
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House,
NY, NY. Latino students enrolled in ESL classes
Ana Graciela Meija Guillon
Children's Home Society of NJ,
Trenton, NJ. Parents of day-care children.
El Centro de Recursos Para
Familias (Catholic Charities), Trenton, NJ.
Spanish-speaking, Adult Basic Education students.
Gloria Perez
Hispanic Development Corporation,
Newark, NJ. Young Latino/a members of an ESL course.
Quote: "The different stories used in the People &
Stories/Gente y Cuentos Program serve to transport the audiences every
week to faraway places. Here, we nostalgically reminisce, at times
chuckle, and quite often vent. At the Hispanic Development Center in
Newark, New Jersey, the Program has been successfully operating for a
number of years. The universality of the topics touched upon provides
an arena where the participants can freely self reflect and share. I am
continuously reminded of the joy and power of the written word."
Deborah Salmon
Centro de Hospitalidad,
Staten Island, NY. Latino immigrants.
Marcy
Schwartz
Garden
State Youth Correctional Facility, Yardville, NJ. Spanish-speaking, male
inmates.
Quote: "Stories
are for everyone, and everyone has stories. I treasure my involvement
with People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos because it truly democratizes
literature and makes it a shared community experience. Beyond literacy
and pedagogy, stories provide the pathways to learning about ourselves and
each other, and to appreciating the beauty of language. Writers have
no monopoly on linguistic beauty; the participants' interventions are as
poetic and powerful, if not more, than the stories that generate them."
Macarena Urzua
La Casa de Don Pedro,
Newark, NJ. Young Latina women in parenting class.
Trained Coordinators - Sites Pending
Cristobal Cardemil-Krause
Selma Cohen
Karen Ericson
Alice Faroh
Gloria Melissa Garcia
Matilde (Mati) Moros
Jose Juan Perez-Melendez
Irene C. Pompetti-Szul
Jo L. Schmidt
Margarita G. Velasco
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