Shawnna White, a junior at Simon Gratz High School, is an aspiring artist and creator. She’s developing a character, “Arela,” whose life is, well, kinda sucky. Arela’s wealthy parents don’t love her, no matter how well she does in school or how polite she is or talented she is.
“In the beginning, she’s treated like a puppet. She has no free will,” explains 16-year-old White.
But the story has a happy ending: Arela breaks free of her parents and sets a path for her future. Arela has hope. White does, too.
She’s part of nonprofit I Choose To Win’s Cultiv8 Hope program, a storytelling competition that challenges participants to create a work that best shows what hope means to them. Participants choose any artistic medium from cartooning to composing. Their completed projects will be posted online in early June for a public vote, one of the factors judges will use to choose 10 winners. The program will celebrate all participants during a Juneteenth event TBD.
I Choose To Win is a 10-year-old nonprofit organization that aims to set BIPOC women and girls from Philadelphia and Montgomery counties on a path to a “winning life,” which could be centered on career, money, power or anything else participants consider success. Cultiv8 Hope, which is gender-neutral, is its newest offering, funded for one year with a $10,000 allocation to be invested in youth hope-building ideas with grants received from The Philadelphia City Fund, the District Attorney’s Forfeiture Fund and the HealthSpark Foundation. That money will be distributed via $1,000 grants to individuals or groups that offer up the best youth hope-building ideas.
Melonie Butler launched I Choose to Win in 2015 because there were pivotal moments in her life when she had to make a choice, but she didn’t realize the impact that would later have.
“I want individuals to be more intentional about the choices that they make, so that they can actually direct their narrative about who it is they’ll become and then take action steps and cultivate habits to get there,” she says.
Using Germantown’s Our House Culture Center as its base, I Choose to Win offers programs that build confidence and introduce coping methods, including workshops on topics including goal setting and decision making and five-week programs on fostering community and telling your own story.
The organization recruits participants — more than 8,300 to date — by reaching out to educators, nonprofits, faith leaders and other youth-focused entities.
The idea for Cultiv8 Hope came to Butler in 2023 after seeing a “deep and growing hope deficit … a loss of hope that negatively impacts mental health.” That year, she says, 33 Philadelphia students died by gun violence and more than 150 others were injured. Hundreds more became “co-victims,” forced to wrestle with grief, anxiety, fear and instability.
Since past program participants expressed frustration over feelings they weren’t being listened to, Butler felt offering a platform to tell their stories would be beneficial. Storytelling has scientifically measured health benefits and increases feelings of empathy and connection.
”Cultiv8 Hope seeks to activate youth voices, affirm their brilliance and equip them with tools for healing and leadership. We want students to leave this program not only with more hope but with new relationships, skills and confidence to shape their futures,” Butler says. “We also want young people to know that adults care about what they have to say, that their stories matter and that their ideas are worth listening to and investing in.”
Like storytelling, hope is a science. “It’s not just an airy fairy, woo woo thing,” says Cultiv8 Program Director Natalie Francis. She points to research that concludes people with high hopes have more self-esteem, are less prone to anxiety, depression, and more likely to succeed than their low hope-having counterparts. Other studies have shown that when a patient with a serious medical condition has high hopes for recovery, they have better outcomes.
There are entire books dedicated to the science of hope — and books on how to be more hopeful. In TED Talk The Science and Power of Hope, University of Oklahoma Hope Research Center Founding Director Chan Hellman says thousands of studies have supported the conclusion that hope is “one of the single best predictors of well-being across the lifespan.”
Hope can be measured on a scale initially developed by the late positive psychologist and University of Kansas professor Rick Snyder who defined hope as “the sum of perceived capabilities to produce routes to desired goals, along with the perceived motivation to use those routes.”
Cultiv8 will use its own modified “Hope Scale” to measure success when the program ends. Participants took the same survey when the program began. Cultiv8’s Hope Scale asks participants to use a numerical scale of 1-8, with 1 being the lowest, to respond to questions including, I can think of lots of ways to get out of a tough spot, and I work hard to reach my goals.”
When organizers announced the program earlier this year, they changed their usual criteria, accepting all applicants living in the Philadelphia area. They expected at most 50 kids to express interest. Instead, this first cohort has 70 students. Each can attend optional weekly workshops via Zoom or at Our House Culture Center, where participants get a safe space, art supplies, snacks and activities to build “HOPE muscles,” Francis says. About 15 students regularly attend the in-person gatherings and, on alternate weeks, about 10 engage long-distance.
Many students enter Cultiv8 believing hope is fixed and can’t be changed — meaning: If you don’t have it, you don’t have it. Through conversation and discussion, the program shows them hope is a buildable mindset, not a forgone outlook.
“One person will say, You either get a good grade or you don’t. We say, Yes, but if you hope to get a good grade, you’re going to move differently. You’re going to study more. You’re going to ask for help,” Francis says. “We’re trying to expand their minds to realize hope is something that can be nurtured, cultivated and grown.”
White says the program has already inspired her. She’s attended in-person workshops where she’s shared details about Arela with the group. She’s also considering a new medium: Instead of creating her characters on her tablet, she’s experimenting with acrylic paints the program provided.
“I’m not as nervous as I used to be,” White says when asked if the program has affected her. “This allows me to show my creativity. I like that they encourage the kids to finish their projects and encourage them to do better.”
Creativ8 and Martin Luther King High School senior Giovanni Arzu, who’s interested in fashion, says he’s learned how hope affects the way you approach the future.
“When you want something in the future, hope helps you achieve it,” says 18-year-old Arzu. “You’ve got to keep it on your mind so you can achieve it. You’ve got to focus or else you’re not going to make it.”
Corrections: An earlier version of this story misstated how many winners of the competition there will be; that number is 10. Also, the story incompletely cited where the funding comes from; that is The Philadelphia City Fund, the DA’s Forfeiture Fund and the HealthSpark Foundation.
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