PSU Mentors at Local Youth Center

This past Wed., March 26, 2014 a group of PSU English Major students worked with the Pemi Youth Center to engage local youth in creative writing. The group of PSU students, lead by Paul Rogalus and Joseph Mealey of the English Department, are volunteers in an organization Mentoring Enhances Student Achievement (MESA). It is made up of both English majors and minors who believe in volunteer work, mentoring and helping youth achieve academic success.

"We have worked with the Pemi Youth Center in the past, I think it is a great thing to foster a good relationship between the school and the Plymouth community," said Timothy Gendron, senior member of MESA.

The group has begun a four-week creative writing program with the Pemi Youth Center. Each week, PSU students will facilitate a writing workshop for the children. This past week was the first week, and over thirty people were in attendance at the workshop. The ages of the students ranged from 10 to 18 years old. The PSU students prompted the children to write a story that answered the prompt, "What that would do if you saw a different person in the mirror?" Everyone in attendance wrote a short creative story, including the staff.

"There were a lot of people that really got into it, even if they didn't all feel comfortable reading what they wrote out loud. We'll be back next week with some new prompts," said Rogalus of the English Department.

There was plenty of creativity in the pieces that were shared after the writing session. Students wrote about seeing their favorite actors or actresses in the mirror, including Brad Pitt and Mila Kunis. Some students wrote about trolls, reptiles, and tigers looking back at them in the mirror. Everyone was encouraging and was a respectful audience member to each other.

"It's an English Department organization, so it is very limited in that sense, we can't operate in the same way other students organizations can. We are strictly funded by English Department. So I think it is really cool when we get to do events like the writing workshop with The Pemi Youth Center," said Gendron.

MESA organizes the English Department Fall Social and hosts Game Night every year, "Any excuse that allows us to play games and eat pizza we like," said Gendron.

The Fall Social is a gathering put on by MESA to promote English majors meeting one another and facilitating the sense of community among the students. "These events are an opportunity for the upper and lower classmen to meet one another outside of the classroom," said Gendron.

The Pemi Youth center has hosted MESA in the past and had asked the organization to join them again this year due to past success. By the end of the four-week period, MESA will publish a booklet of the students' writing pieces in order to celebrate their hard work. The publication will be revealed during a party hosted by MESA at the Pemi Youth Center.

If anyone is interested in finding out more information about MESA and/or want to get involved they can contact Joseph Mealey at j_mealey@mail.plymouth.edu.