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WORDS TO
THE WISE
Women’s Leadership Luncheon with Erin Gruwell
03.18.14
By Kelsea Mullane
Last week, I attended Heart of Florida United Way’s Women’s Leadership Luncheon, featuring New York Times best-selling author, Erin Gruwell, as keynote speaker. Erin’s book The Freedom Writers Diary was the inspiration for the film Freedom Writers starring two time Oscar winner Hilary Swank.
After reading the book and seeing the movie, it was so inspiring to see Erin speak about the power of literacy and education. I have loved books as long as I can remember, so it was amazing to hear first-hand how reading affected the lives of Erin’s students.
After listening to her speak, I was fortunate enough to meet her and got to speak to her about her experience. (We even bonded over our love for Jimmy Fallon.) She signed my book Write What Needs to Be Written, which fits perfectly with her story. Erin and her students prove that the pen is mightier than the sword and that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
Kelsea Mullane has served as an Account Coordinator with Costa Communications Group for the past eight months. She loves good books, except when she has to move all of them out of her apartment.
Hi my name is Teresa jaap and I was one of the two teachers at the conference with Erin Gruwell and I have to tell you that was one of the greatest days of my life as she is my true inspiration. I just moved to a position that lets me work with students whom are the exact same as Erin. I am in charge of getting these students to love school and be productive students. I’m so excited but also worried. As you know public school systems don’t have a lot of money to help new programs so it will be a challenge. Anyways, I wanted to let you know I was googling, looking for the titles of all the books because I want to get them for these kids and came across your article. It was an awesome day. Teresa