The Island’s teen center, Alex’s Place at the YMCA, in collaboration with the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society’s Spectrum Film Festival, announces a writing and art contest for all Island teenagers. This contest, Vineyard Teen Perspectives, is open to all seventh to 12th graders who are Vineyard residents, regardless of which school they attend. Six first-place winners in each category will be announced at the Alex’s Place Open House on Friday, April 26.
Separate contests for writing and art are each divided by grade levels — 7 and 8, 9 and 10, and 11 and 12 — that ask students to create an original work based on prompts about inclusion.
This year’s writing entries must be written as either an essay or letter addressing the prompt, “Identify the most important step that a community can take to show that it is inclusive. Explain your choice.”Island librarians will judge the writing submissions.
The art entries must be presented in the form of an illustration, collage, photograph, or painting, and may include words (or not). The goal of the entrants’ art is to visually answer the question: “What does inclusion look like?” Judges from the Featherstone Center for the Arts will select winners in this category.
First-place winners will each receive a prize worth $100, including gift certificates for art supplies from Educomp or books from Bunch of Grapes, movie passes from the M.V. Film Society, and $50 cash. Entry forms with submission guidelines are available at Alex’s Place, the M.V. Film Center, Educomp, Bunch of Grapes bookstore, and all local libraries.
