The weather was overcast and cool for the first day of Oakland's 2012 Art & Soul Festival on August 4, but the action was all sunshine smiles and heat at the WriterCoach Connection booth. Community members were still signing up as we finally began closing up shop for the night at 8:00 p.m., at which point nearly 40 people had filled our sign-up sheets. And that was with another full day of the festival still ahead of us!
We'll need more volunteers than ever before to train as coaches this year, as we expand to Richmond for the first time and double the number of students we serve at Berkeley High, while serving the same student cohorts at our other sites in Oakland, Berkeley, Albany, and El Cerrito.
Bring it on!
It was like this all day long at the Art & Soul WCC booth. We barely had time to snag free ribs at the booth up the street!
Another volunteer signs up for coach training! We'll need in the neighborhood of 600 coaches this year to work with more than 2,000 students in four East Bay school districts.
Bob Menzimer