This month we’re excited to share about Harley, a reliable and creative volunteer!

Where are you from? New York

What first brought you to 826 New Orleans?  My dad is from New Orleans, so after I finished school, I thought this would be a good place to explore and learn more about. I don’t have any family living here anymore, but I walk amongst familiar ghosts.

What keeps you coming back? To continue to support 826 students in their writing and reading and develop deeper connections with them.

What are some skills you have that help you out at 826 New Orleans?  Openness to new ways of doing things and interactive listening.

What are you up to when you’re not volunteering with us? In my spare time, I paint, garden, bike around the city, and play with my cat, Phoebe.

Favorite book/ author? Go Tell It On the Mountain – James Baldwin; Just Kids – Patti Smith

Favorite snack?  Cheetos, clementines

Favorite thing about New Orleans?  The celebratory nature of the city, it’s people and the flora and fauna.

Congrats to our July Volunteer of the Month, Emma Schain! Emma has been a passionate and dedicated volunteer over the past few years, helping with everything from the Volunteer Leadership Krewe, to in-school projects, to being a Volunteer Captain at Dark and Stormy. We’re sad to see Emma go on to new adventures, but are so grateful for her presence the past couple years. Thanks, Emma!

What first brought you to Big Class?
I originally saw a flier for Big Class while attending a writing workshop at the old studio space on St. Claude, but what really drew me in was: 1. a desire to work with young people directly 2. excitement about being part of a community focused on elevating the voices of New Orleans youth.

What keeps you coming back?
I am drawn over and over to the people, young and old(er), who consistently create spaces for kids to write, get published, and have their voices heard. I love the Big Class community, from the fellow volunteers to the staff to the kiddos.

What are some skills you have that help you out at Big Class?
I’ve been a classroom teacher, so I guess that comes in handy when working with young people, but I actually feel like Big Class has taught me so many skills and made me a better contributor to our schools and organizations around the city.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced at Big Class?
This isn’t really a challenge having to do with my work at Big Class, but I do consistently see and experience the tension between what our schools are under pressure to provide versus what we see external organizations like Big Class bring to students. I hope that Big Class can continue to drive our schools to consider how creative writing and the principles of student-led learning can be central to the classroom experience.

What are some great projects you’ve helped with? Tell us the story behind one of them if you can.
Working on the project at Carver was fulfilling for me in so many ways. I used to work at Carver and I currently support some of the teachers there, and the whole massive building is also just chock-full of friends, former colleagues, and the siblings and cousins of students I used to teach, so walking into that building once a week and then working on writing with kids was really meaningful. I also am so proud of the work our Carver students created; I feel so lucky to have been able to witness and contribute to small parts of that project.

What are you up to when you’re not volunteering with us?
Well this is really bittersweet because I just hit my 4.5 year mark of living in New Orleans, of supporting teachers around the city through Teach For America, of teaching in schools, and of dancing at Dancing Grounds, and now I’m off to graduate school in California to pursue a master’s degree in Education. I am so grateful for Big Class and the immense impact it has had on me as an individual, and I am excited to watch from the West Coast as it continues to shine more and more light on the kids of New Orleans and their stories.

Congrats to our June Volunteer of the Month, Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton! Most recently, Tasheka contributed the BEAUTIFUL book design for History Between These Folds: Personal Narratives by the 11th Grade at G.W. Carver. We cannot thank her enough. Read on to hear more about her experience with that book and others, as well as her own design process. Thanks, Tasheka!

What first brought you to Big Class?
A friend of mine thought it would be a good idea for me to submit some artwork (an illustration) to one of Big Class’s book projects, and I did. I had just moved back to New Orleans, so this was a way for me to get reacquainted with the local art community.

What keeps you coming back?
The projects—I studied English writing in undergraduate school, which is why I admire the projects and the quality of work that Big Class produces. Writing seems to be a lost art for a lot of young people. At first, a lot of them don’t consider writing as a form of art or as something they can actually do for a living.

What are some skills you have that help you out at Big Class?
I’m a graphic designer with a specialization in book design and I also do a lot of illustration for the books that I design. Thus far, I have designed four books for Big Class and contributed artwork, which includes illustration, graphics, photography and collages.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced at Big Class?
I would have to say the deadlines. The deadlines are always tight.

What are some great projects you’ve helped with? Tell us the story behind one of them if you can.
I’ve worked on The Best Bank volumes 1 and 2, How Do You Know We’re Not Zombies? All the projects that I have worked on have been fantastic! The most recent project that I worked on—History Between these Folds: Personal Stories by the Eleventh Grade at G.W. Carver High School was definitely my favorite. Part of the reason is that I had the opportunity to meet the student editorial board to get some insight into the project and their expectations for the design of the book. It was definitely one of my most memorable and special moments of this year thus far, not to mention, the writing was honest, heartfelt, innocent and it captures the spirit of New Orleans. The students were very welcoming to me and extremely charismatic, I had a great time talking with them.

What are you up to when you’re not volunteering with us?
I teach full-time at Southeastern Louisiana University and I’m faculty in the MFA program in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts. I run a small freelance design studio called Blacvoice and I also help run an art/design collaborative studio call Kernbred.

Congrats to Katy Simpson Smith, our May Volunteer of the Month! Katy has been a faithful behind-the-scenes copyeditor for years now, painstakingly making sure our students’ writing is a readable as possible once published. This year alone, she’s copyedited all 250 Pizza Poetry Poems, the book I Want You to Know Something About Me: Letters about the election of Donald Trump by New Orleans Youth, and the forthcoming publication History Between These Folds: Personal Stories by the 11th Grade at G.W. Carver High School. Thanks for all your hard work and dedication, Katy!

What first brought you to Big Class?
I started working with Big Class’s after-school program in the spring of 2013, after I’d been in the city a couple of years and was still trying to figure out where I fit in and who my people were. Obviously, my people were writers and readers and dreamers and bald-faced liars. 

What keeps you coming back?
The way these students use language both delights me and challenges me to be a better writer. In a poem for this year’s Pizza Poetry project, one kid wrote: “Is love people’s way of telling you a secret? Is love people’s way of saying I love you? Is love my way of telling you something important?” I’ve been pondering that for the past week. 

What are some skills you have that help you out at Big Class?
I mostly work on copyediting, so a good acquaintance with grammar and spelling would be the obvious skill, but I also enjoy hearing the students’ voices in my head as I’m reading their work, which helps me keep their attitudes and idiosyncrasies even as I’m ensuring that they’re readable. 

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced at Big Class?
Those moments when you’re looking at a handwritten or transcribed student piece and have absolutely no idea what they were trying to say. I wish I had a magic telephone to call up their brains: “Yo, Tiffany! Is this word ‘sparkling’ or ‘spelunking’?” 

What are some great projects you’ve helped with? Tell us the story behind one of them if you can.
One of my favorite projects this year was the book of letters responding to the election. You can really tell when a student goes beyond the assigned prompt to express genuine passion or concern, and this project elicited plenty of raw fear, confusion, and also hope. I worked on the collection over the winter holidays, so I was able to share my favorite letters with family members, Democrat and Republican alike, which prompted plenty of good dinner-table debate.

What are you up to when you’re not volunteering with us?
I mostly sit on the porch, working on another novel. Every now and then I’ll walk down to the river to make sure it’s still there. This spring, I also organized a series of writing workshops in public high schools across Mississippi (which has involved much consultation so far with the Big Class staff!); it’s been an important reminder that you can’t do big things by yourself. 

Congrats to Megan Braden-Perry, our April Volunteer of the Month! This spring, Megan lead a food writing workshop in the Writers’ Room at Sylvanie Williams College Prep. She brought delicious smells of BBQ sauce to the Writers’ Room, and her class wrote a memorable ode to pizza (and feet-za), and learned to cook simple, healthy dishes. Thanks for all your hard work, Megan!

What first brought you to Big Class?
Kelly Harris-DeBerry told Doug Keller about me, and how I had some connections with restaurants. He had me contact a few for Dark and Stormy Night, and later he told me a bit about the program. Later, he asked if I’d be able to volunteer, and I was. It was perfect because I get to choose what I want to teach and because it’s not a huge time commitment. 

What keeps you coming back?
Kids are just so funny! In the cookbook writing/healthy cooking class I taught, I learned the kids at Sylvanie F. Williams love wings and Magnolia Specials more than anything!

What are some skills you have that help you out at Big Class?
I’ve always loved children and teaching, so that helps. Also I’m very type A in life, but not in the classroom. I just want the kids to learn and have fun. As long as everyone is learning, happy and safe, I’m glad.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced at Big Class?
The only challenge I faced was when I had to tell kids who weren’t signed up for the program that they would have to be good in class and wait until the next session to hopefully be selected by their teachers. “Y’all going to Big Class? Can I come? Hmph, I wanna go to Big Class!” The students and all the grownups at the school are amazing.

What are some great projects you’ve helped with? Tell us the story behind one of them if you can.
My idea was to make a healthy cookbook with recipes kids could actually cook themselves. When you’re in 3rd grade, you want to help at home and you want to do things yourself. I remember being that age and trying to cook, but having trouble with the cookbooks in the house. I knew how to make scrambled eggs, but that was it. Hopefully grownups will buy this cookbook for kids, so that they can learn how to cook healthy dishes. There are even some amazing gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and nut-free dishes!

What are you up to when you’re not volunteering with us?
My second book, Crescent City Snow: The Ultimate Guide to New Orleans Snowball Stands, is out now. I have an Instagram account for it (www.instagram.com/crescentcitysnow) where I go to even more snowball stands, some as far as Houston! For the book I went to 50 stands and interviewed 50 people, so I’ve been trying to catch up with all of them. I’m finally graduating from Dillard in May and my son turns 3 in June. Also, I’ll be doing TeachNOLA this summer and starting my creative nonfiction MFA coursework at UNO this fall. I’m very blessed and incredibly thankful.

Congrats to Willmarine Hurst, our March Volunteer of the Month! Willmarine started volunteering with Big Class during the 2015-2016 school year, helping with in-school projects at Sylvanie Williams and Akili. This year, she’s been working with 11th graders at Carver to write personal histories about the connection between a moment in their lives and a moment in history. Thanks for all your hard work, Willmarine!

What first brought you to Big Class?
For the four and a half years that I was displaced to Plano, TX post Hurricane Katrina, I worked as a substitute teacher in the Plano Independent School District (PISD). I also worked as a tutor in a tutoring club in Plano. I saw many of the students that I worked with here in New Orleans at some of the schools around the PISD. I have always enjoyed working with young people and learning from them. So, when I returned to New Orleans, I saw a sign on the library bulletin board for Big Class. I was interested in seeing if this was something that I could do and it was. It gave me an opportunity to, once again, engage with the young people in our city. It also feels good knowing that as a part of my life’s legacy I have instilled in these kids the necessary tools to perfect one of the most important and effective vehicles of human expression ever created… the written language.
What keeps you coming back?
I am the consummate teacher and the consummate student. And as I grow older and into the role of elder in my own family, I feel that one of my duties is to extend myself to the larger community and, in turn, help those who will one day step into my shoes as an elder themselves.  I feel a sense of obligation to this generation of youth because they are at a turning point in world history and need our guidance so much. I enjoy imparting knowledge, helping others and learning from them, as well. I think that I learn as much from the students as they learn from me. I love to see the ideas, imagination, and creativity of the young people. It keeps me coming back with a “what next” sort of expectation!
What are some skills you have that help you out at Big Class?
I have been able to utilize my skills as a journalist/writer/copy editor from my undergraduate degree in Print Journalism; as well as my research skills acquired while working on my master’s degree in History. However, more than the academic skills, I think my ability to connect with and relate to the kids is just as important. I am a part of their community. I know their streets, the places in their city and their language. I think that connection with the students and the city is a big part of my skill set.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced at Big Class?
The biggest challenge I have faced is the time constraints. It’s hard to get a lot done in 45 to 60 minutes. It seems like we don’t always spend enough time with the students to get their full input. I also feel that we are infringing on the teacher’s time in some instances; but in other instances, the teachers are very welcoming.
What are some great projects you’ve helped with? Tell us the story behind one of them if you can.
I have worked with the students at Sylvanie Williams school, but there was a lot of rearranging of schedules, so I could not continue with that project; but I enjoyed the time that I did have working with Ashley and the students at that school. There was one project, the Super Hero project at Akili Academy, which I enjoyed very much. A call went out for additional help with this project. I was paired up with a very impressive young man (3rd or 4th grader, I think) named Preston, who had come up with a whole story about the purple hero he was writing about. He had a lot of good ideas, and we brainstormed together in the hallway to bring his hero to life. It was fun and I was so impressed by Preston’s imaginative genius!
What are you up to when you’re not volunteering with us?
I am also an Evacuteer with the city and a member of OPEN/PLTI, (Orleans Parish Education Network/Parent Leadership Training Institute).  And I do some freelance writing. I am also in the process of editing a book. I assist my son, who is wheelchair bound, and my 18-year-old grandson, who keeps me on my toes! In my spare time (which is rare), I write poetry.