Tales from West 57th Avenue:
The Pearson Residents Writing Project
Over the last 10 years, the Community and Residents Mentors Association (CARMA) has been working with the residents of George Pearson Centre to help them to reach their goals. CARMA mentors are former residents of Pearson Centre who wanted to stay connected to the people they left behind when they themselves moved into the community. CARMA mentors help residents to make goals, both big and small, and then support them to realize those goals. Sometimes the goal is to leave Pearson and sometimes it is to stay and feel good about being there.
One of the strategies that CARMA uses to encourage Pearson residents to hope and to dream is by finding ways to build bridges to the world outside. Tales from West 57th Avenue: The Pearson Residents Writing Project is one of those bridges. Assisted by students from the neighbouring Sir Winston Churchill High School, Pearson residents spent many months over the spring and summer of 2005 crafting their stories, poems and biographies. It took time because many people didn’t think that they had a story to tell and others needed the assistance of letter boards or lite writers to tap their stories out.
What you will find on the story pages of this website is the first installment of Tales from West 57th Avenue. There are many more stories to tell and many more residents who might decide to write them.