DISCO's Everyday Fund supports students as they find their voices.
Children carry things into school every day. Not just physical things like paper, pencils, back packs, and lunch boxes. But also abstract things like excitement, fear, love, and burdens—real and imagined. Without the language to explain and examine these things, students can feel adrift in their experiences, alone on their own desert islands.
The Desert Island Supply Co. works alongside students to help them develop the creative tools they need to explore and document their worlds. Our in-school creative writing programs and after-school workshops help students to find their voices and understand themselves in important ways. Together, we discover that each child has a story to tell.
Please join us in our efforts to support our students. We appreciate your contribution.
I Want the Snow
by Javeia S. (4th grade)
I want the snow to laugh
along with me and my friends
when we fall
I want the ladybug to help me
with math, and the butterfly
to do all my social studies
I want the rain to sing with me
every night
Floating and Sinking
by Kayliyha M. (3rd grade)
When my grandmother died
I was sinking
My heart just floated away
I was never the same again
Magic City of Birmingham
by Steven C. (7th grade)
I smell fried fish and chicken.
I smell BBQ pits on fire in the tailgating section.
I hear the crowd cheering as their team gets a touchdown.
I hear the clippers clip off pieces of hair from a man's head.
I feel the joy in the air,
The love in fact.
I see the magic of people changing in my life.
I touch the casket as dead man descends everyday.
I hear the preacher preach against racism saying
"a change is gonna come one day or another."
And just because she didn't like my "kind of music"
and she didn't like the way I walked
as well as the way that I talked
she always wanted to know
where I was from.
(All poems first published in Pale Summer, a 2018 anthology of poetry by the All City Writers Corps.)