The Philly Youth Poetry Movement (PYPM) is a proud recipient of a $40,000 grant that will go toward establishing a permanent gathering space to run literary arts education programs for youth from around the Philadelphia area. The grant comes from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, as part of its Knight Arts Challenge and will fund a space that will offer free poetry and cultural workshops, homework tutoring, and life-skills mentoring.

The Philly Youth Poetry Movement is one of 36 projects out of over 1,700 applicants to receive such an award. The Knight Foundation's Knight Arts Challenge is a $9 million initiative supporting innovative projects that inspire and enrich Philadelphia's communities. The grant will help ensure that PYPM is a sustainable fixture in the community by funding a space that will expand its programs.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled. The Philly Youth Poetry Movement will finally have a home,” said Greg Corbin, PYPM Founder and Executive Director. “This grant will help us continue to impact young people across Philadelphia, encouraging them to use poetry to tell their stories and better their community.”

PYPM has been using donated spaces around the city to host its writing programs since being founded in 2006. With limited resources, the youth arts organization has managed to provide free weekly writing workshops, monthly poetry competitions, mentoring, and send a youth poetry team representing Philadelphia to the largest youth poetry slam festival in the world, Brave New Voices, each year. Within the last year, PYPM has also launched a slam league where poetry teams from Philadelphia-area high schools compete, created the Dream Big Literary Arts Festival, coordinated the first ever “Youth Poetry Night” at City Hall, and have had youth poets perform all over the city from community centers and shelters, to the Kimmel Center for PIFA.

The Knights Arts Challenge is a matching grant, therefore PYPM has launched a campaign to raise $20,000 over each of the next two years. Those interested in supporting can donate at www.pypm215.org.

The Philly Youth Poetry Movement is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization committed to helping the youth of Philadelphia discover the power of their voices through spoken word and literary expression. Founded in 2006, PYPM provides a safe environment for at-risk youth ages 13-19 to use poetry as a vehicle to express and advocate for themselves, explore their identity(ies), enhance literacy and critical thinking skills, and become agents of social change. Through free weekly workshops, monthly slams, national/local performance opportunities, mentoring and community service, we provide a space where youth use their voices to bring about both personal and social transformation. 

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote informed and engaged communities and lead to transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

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