In my life recovery, building a foundation of coping skills and recognizing dangers in my personality structure were paramount. But I also had to learn when to divert my reactions to those around me. When I sensed some individual’s dangerous personality traits in the past, I often followed with poor decisions. Now, with skills maintained and recovery intact, I’m building a different foundation, or should I say, adding bricks to one already started. The Petoskey Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation has accepted an idea several friends and I have conceptualized. We’ve started the Little Traverse Literary Guild and are collecting monies for writing awards and scholarships within the Char-Em School District covering much of northwestern Michigan, below the bridge.
Since my kayak journey around Lake Superior and finalizing four manuscripts, I have finally found the time to concentrate on “giving back.” I’ve volunteered at various venues for years, and continue to do so, but these awards and scholarships, if endowed as planned, will venture into perpetuity and allow the Char-Em school district to become a breeding ground of great writers.
There will be news to follow prior to the New Year, and a celebration will be in order come January. If all works as planned, the first awards would be available for the Crooked Tree Art Center’s Writing Awards slated for April, 2020. I hope schools throughout the district encourage all grade schoolers, middle schoolers, and high schoolers to enter with either a prose or poetry entry. In the past, some students have competed in both categories. However a student enters, the fact is explicit: The student enjoys writing and we should encourage that genius.
I look forward to adding bricks to the foundations of life for young people as they courageously write our history, our common causes, and our dilemmas.