Big Tree Arts Inc

Free speech is for everyone! 

That's why Big Tree Arts brings performance poets from across the United States to work with over 500 students at alternative high schools and homeless shelters. Our Loud Writers' Project focuses on creating space for at-risk youth to tell their stories, their way. 

Because the opportunity to tell your story is also an opportunity to revise it. 

Research on performance poetry shows that programs like the Loud Writers' Project help students postively redirect their lives by giving them an opportunity to reimagine the future, for themselves. 

It's not just at-risk students who benefit from the spaces Big Tree Arts creates. Kids, teenagers, college students, adults, EVERYONE deserves to be heard. Our valuable experiences are being edged out by multiple-choice tests. Our opportunities to be creative in the classroom are being cut by inadequate school funding.

Writing, self-expression, and positive redirection should be available to everyone, no matter where they live or how much money their parents have in the bank. 

But this won't happen without your support. 

When you support Big Tree Arts, you're supporting creativity and resilience in the classroom. Helping students give voice to their lives can inspire them to learn and to stay in school.

You're also supporting the longest-running open poetry series in Boise. 

Big Tree Arts runs three monthly poetry slams that are open to the public. Anyone can sign up to read -- your skill level or experience doesn't matter. Over 100 community members have shared their work over the past year. No one's going to censor you if we can help it. 

But we need your help too. Your gift will:

• Support free speech spaces in Boise. 
• Support the creation and performance of poetry. 
• Support creativity in the classroom. 
• Support the empowerment of at-risk students. 

Thanks for supporting Big Tree Arts!