Capital Region Cares Capital Region Cares 2017-2018 | Page 32

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Success story
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916 INK HOSTS CREATIVE
WRITING CLASSES FOR
CHILDREN AT THEIR
“IMAGINARIUM” IN
SACRAMENTO
p h oto : co u rt e sy o f m i k e lo n g
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CAPITAL REGION CARES 2017 | comstocksmag.com
BY Danna Sweidan PHOTO: Ken James
K
atie McCleary and 916 Ink co-
founder Michael Spurgeon
knew they wanted to start a
creative nonprofit for children
when they met at a writer’s conference
in 2010. They believed Sacramento
could support such a program
because there was already a strong
writing community here, nurtured
by programs like the Sacramento
Poetry Center, but there was a glaring,
missing piece in Sacramento’s
creative writing community — a
youth program.
Today, the nonprofit provides
youth writing programs and field
trips to their “Imaginarium” on 37th
Avenue in Sacramento. Beside host-
ing classes at the Imaginarium, 916
Ink hosts creative writing classes
in schools, community centers and
youth detention centers throughout
the Capital Region, teaching students
how to read, write and tell stories.
The classes provide opportuni-
ties for expression and learning that
might not otherwise be available,
and the students are taught to treat
all work as fiction, which provides
some of the anonymity needed to
share personal stories. McCleary says
an important factor of their program
is that every student has their work
published in a book. These are dis-
tributed to the participants and sold
locally. “I know the power of seeing
your own name in print. It’s magical,
it solidifies something in you, that
you’ve arrived, that you matter.”
Students and siblings Zachariah
and Dominique Mejia found creative
direction in the program after taking