Youth Venture

encouraging kids to discover joy, confidence, and a means of self-expression and connection to others through reading and writing

Write On was created in 2000 by then-8th grader Dallas Woodburn. A young writer herself with two self-published books and numerous magazine articles to her name, Dallas wanted to encourage other young people to follow their dreams. Writing gave her self-confidence and reading opened up the world to her. She created a website, www.zest.net/writeon that now features book reviews, author interviews, a forum for young writers to share their work, and more. Write On also holds essay contests with gift certificates to bookstores as prizes and awards two annual scholarships for young writers to attend the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and the USC Summer Seminars Playwriting seminar. In the past six years, Write On's annual Holiday Book Drive has donated 8,342 new books to underprivileged kids.
In 2006, Write On joined forces with an organization Dallas's brother Greg started called S.O.S. -- Save our Soles. Greg, a dedicated cross-country and track runner, was forced to sit out a season because of injuries, and missed running terribly. "How sad," he thought, "if kids couldn't run because they couldn't afford shoes?" So he began collecting old running shoes, cleaning them up, and donating them to Sports Gift, which then ships the shoes to impoverished villages in Africa and Mexico. In less than a year, S.O.S. had donated more than 720 pairs of shoes!