Op-Ed by Tim Whitaker, Executive Director, Mighty Writers
If the scourge of gun violence in our cities and in schools around the country proves anything, it’s that violence can happen anywhere at any time, and its consequences are wide-ranging. We’re never exactly sure who or what to blame for the miserable truth of it all, or for the fact that it just keeps happening.
Violence was not the epidemic it is now back in 2009, when we launched Mighty Writers, the free-forever writing nonprofit for kids seven-to-17 from a Philadelphia storefront back in 2009. If you were looking for a hit of hope along about then, you could not have come to a better place.
Things are different now. The world has grown harder. But 13 years in, with locations in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Kennett Square, Mighty Writers is still a place where peace and clarity is the goal — which, not coincidentally, the act of writing demands. The act of thinking before writing leads to thinking before acting, which leads to new paths and a North Star to the possible.
At Mighty Writers, writing is what we do. It’s in our very name. But clarity of thought is what we’re also teaching at Mighty Writers. The way we see it, there’s nothing more valuable than the act of thinking clearly.
When kids think clearly (which, again, is what writing requires), smart decisions naturally follow. We don’t pretend to have the power to stop gun violence all by ourselves. Not even close.
But gun violence, as you’ve surely noticed, isn’t typically committed by the clear thinking set. It’s why we believe the ability to write with clarity is so Mighty.
Tim Whitaker
Executive Director, Mighty Writers
twhitaker@mightywriters.org
mightywriters.org
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