Hello Peace Community! This is a friendly reminder that the online submission deadline for our 2022 Art and Writing Challenge for Students + Youth Activist Grant Awards is JUNE 1st, 2022 @ Midnight!
SUBMISSION FORM*
*Youth Activist Nomination forms can be submitted here as well – blank forms are available at the bottom of this page.
Contest Details:
Our art and writing challenge, named in honor of its founder Dennis T. Thomas is organized to encourage and support local youth to address issues of peace and social justice through visual art or writing (creative writing or essay). Submissions are open to all middle and high school students in Contra Costa County.
2022 Theme: “Visions of Peace”
When we initially planned this year’s contest at the start of the year—we did not anticipate the global turn of events that would occur, specifically the conflict in Ukraine.Our original prompt asked students to consider their home in the Diablo Valley—and to reflect on the ways it has shaped their worldview. We were curious to hear about their experiences and dreams they had for future generations who will live here.
We would still like to encourage students to respond to this prompt if it speaks to them—but would like to provide an additional opportunity for students to respond directly to the current global crisis happening in Ukraine. We want to hear from students who are attempting to make sense of the chaos we have collectively experienced over the past couple months.
Students! In this time of world conflict, what are you most concerned about? In your view, what do you think are effective pathways to peace? How can we resist division and come together to cultivate a culture of unity and peace? What do we envision emerging from this moment? Where do we go from here?
We encourage all students to explore their own interpretations of our theme through visual art, creative writing (poetry/fiction/etc), and essay.
Submissions are open to all middle and high school students in Contra Costa County.
Our deadline for submissions is JUNE 1st, 2022 @ 11:59PM.
To submit visual art, take a birds-eye photograph of your piece, ensuring that it is properly lit and in focus. Writing submissions should not exceed 1500 words. All writing submissions should be submitted as a WORD or GOOGLE Document, please no PDFs!
Submission Form (Artwork/Writing/Activist Nominations)
Prize Categories:
Middle School and High School Grand Prize Winners
$250 each – for outstanding work, all categories considered
High School First Prize Winners
Visual Art: $100
Creative Writing: $100
Essay: $100
Middle School First Prize Winners
Visual Art: $100
Creative Writing: $100
Essay: $100
HS & Middle School Honorable Mentions
Youth Activist Grant Award Nominations*:
In 2019, the Center established our Youth Activist Grant Award as a way to recognize and honor young people in our community organizing around peace and justice. We are consistently inspired by the number of the dedicated and brave students we see taking change into their own hands. This year has been a year of adjustment for all of us. We are interested in hearing about and celebrating a youth activist or group of young people who have made an exemplary effort to ADAPT their activism during this time. We want to recognize students who, despite the constraints and stress of the pandemic, still managed to find creative and effective ways to organize around the issues impacting them.
The Peace Center invites the community to please nominate a youth organization, individual or group of young people (grades 6-12) who have shown a remarkable commitment and resiliency in the past year, to engage in social justice work. Our panel of judges will consider all submissions and select (1) middle school and (1) high school student winner, each to be awarded a $100 stipend.
Nomination Forms are available here and may be submitted as a document/pdf below.
SUBMISSION FORM
~Sponsor an Award~
Last year, we opened the opportunity for community members to help support our annual challenge for students, by donating funds to sponsor one of the awards! We are excited to bring this back for this year, as this is a wonderful way for the community to support both the Center, as well as encourage the visions of our local students.
Award sponsors are invited to pick which award category they would like to sponsor & commemorate the award in the name of someone they love. Recognition will be given on our website, as well as on the honorary certificate our student awardees receive!
The Award Categories are listed below:
Middle School and High School Grand Prize Winners
$250 each – for outstanding work, all categories considered
High School First Prize Winners
Visual Art: $100
Creative Writing: $100
Essay: $100
Middle School First Prize Winners
Visual Art: $100
Creative Writing: $100
Essay: $100
Those interested in sponsoring an award, would select one of the categories above!
We received a number of generous sponsorship donations last year! All of the winning entries from our 2021 contest can be viewed here:
23rd Annual Dennis Thomas Art and Writing Challenge for Students of Contra Costa
If you are interested in sponsoring an award or would like more information, please send an email to andrew@ourpeacecenter.org with “2022 Award Sponsorship” in the subject line.
In the body of the email, please let us know which award category you would like to sponsor BEFORE making the donation to ensure that category has not already been claimed! Thank you for your consideration.