The CCP's New Location

A location to host the comic project has finally been found: the Human Service Center Corporation. The HSC is a community center that serves Turtle Creek, a suburb of Pittsburgh. The CCP will be part of the Youth Learning In a Fun Environment (LIFE) program which is aimed at elementary school kids.

The area itself was hard hit by the steel industry collapse of the 1970's. The directors told me that some of the people in this area are still unemployed from that period. A lot of the schools are in poor shape and many families only have a single parent. So there's a real need for extracurricular programs that can help kids.

I talked to the people there today and they are very interested in having the CCP there. They have dedicated classes of students I can instruct, ensuring a steady 15-20 kids every session. This is in contrast to the New Haven Public Library and Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center where attendance was whoever showed up. Having a regular class I interact with will be very nice.

I'm going to work with them to have two workshops: one in November to celebrate the 1 year anniversary and another in December for the heck of it. Each will be with a different class of 15-20 students. The workshops will be designed to be similar and serve as an introduction, condensing the material of the regular sessions.

HSC has a special youth summer program that I'll work with in July and August 2008 that serves 150 kids; this will be when the weekly version of the CCP returns. I may even host a third Comic Making Tournament to wrap up the summer version. Then in September 2008 the normal Youth LIFE program begins again with 90-100 students. Weekly CCP sessions will continue.