Your Donations Will Be Matched for the "Flow Tactics" Teen Poetry Campaign!

In the past two days, a generous and anonymous donor has issued a $500 challenge grant to help BPL raise $7,000 for "Flow Tactics," the poetry and performance workshops serving Birmingham youth.

Young Birmingham poets at a recent competition.

This donor is someone close to the "Flow Tactics" program and someone who knows what these young poets are capable of sharing with the city of Birmingham, the state of Alabama, and the world. 

Your donations will be matched 100% until the challenge is met!

Our spring Library WishList mini campaign raise money for the Birmingham Public Library's "Flow Tactics" poetry program.

Flow Tactics is a poetry and performance workshop that began two years ago by poet and community activist, John Paul Taylor, director of the nonprofit group Real Life Poets. He was asked by librarian Haruyo Miyagawa to help teens eager to improve their skills for BPL's popular annual WORD UP! Student Poetry Slam for Jefferson County high school students. 

The Result:

John Paul hosts two-hour workshops one Saturday each month at the Central Library. The workshops have continued and now average 20 young poets-in-training per session (they are very popular and growing every month). Workshop goals include raising teens' commitment to reading, writing, and performing poetry while expanding performance opportunities beyond Birmingham and giving back to the community.

Our Goal:

Our goal is to raise $7,000 by May 5. The $7,000 will be used for direct costs such as instructor fees, promotional expenses, and materials and supplies. Part of the donations will be used to help some of the young performers travel to Chicago for a national poetry and performance competition called Brave New Voices. No team from Alabama has ever competed at the annual competition, and we all have great hopes that the Birmingham team will be accepted as the first. Check them out on Facebook. These performances are very impressive: 

How You Can Help: 

You can help us by contributing to this worthy cause for these talented young people. Also, please share our tweets and posts and spread the word to your email/ friends lists. During the course of the campaign, we will share several videos of students performing, such as the one here:

You may donate online or mail your donation to BPL at this address:

Birmingham Public Library 
Library WishList
2100 Park Place
Birmingham, AL 35203