Pongo Publishing Programs
Pongo is a seventeen-year-old nonprofit. We have worked with over 6,000 teens, half in individual sessions, to help them write therapeutically about their difficult life experiences. We are currently in our thirteenth year of working at King County juvenile detention and our tenth year at Child Study and Treatment Center, the state psychiatric hospital for children. Other Pongo sites have included Orion Center (homeless youth), Treehouse (foster youth), Echo Glen (youth in juvenile rehab), and Lambert House(LGBT youth).
Pongo has professionally produced thirteen books of poetry by its teen authors, and has distributed 13,500 of these books for free to distressed youth and also to libraries, judges, and agencies.
At book fairs and conferences over 17 years, Pongo has talked to 10,000 people in the community about distressed youth. Pongo has exhibited at Bumbershoot Arts Festival for 17 years. We are a sponsor of Folklife Festival. We have appeared at Burning Word, WordStock, and other festivals.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
Pongo's founder was honored by Bill and Melinda Gates in November 2010 when he was named a Microsoft Integral Fellow by the Microsoft Alumni Foundation. The award was judged by leaders of five prominent national foundations.
Pongo has recently been featured in the following media (among others!):
Pongo has a new website which will allows abused and neglected teens from anywhere to write poetry online. We are looking for support to expand the reach and impact of our new site. The featured writing activities on the site have been developed by Pongo over a number of years, to serve the emotional needs of our authors. The web site will include teaching information and writing activities for teachers and counselors to download and use.