A free Creative Journaling Workshop for teens was held at the Menlo Park Library on Thursday. The event, put together by the M-A Journaling Club and the Menlo Park Library’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG), aimed to encourage people to try journaling and other creative art forms.
Journaling, the practice of recording your life through words and pictures in a personal journal, is a popular hobby and stress reliever. The local workshop provided participants with all the materials they would need to start their own journaling experience. Bullet journals, stickers, calligraphy pens, washi tape, and snacks were all available at the event.
“I’ve been interested in journaling for a long time. I just never had the chance to get kickstarted,” participant and sophomore Aiko Robinson said. “I’ve been documenting important things in my life like concerts that I went to, things I did with my friends that were fun, or just big parts of my life.”
Robinson enjoyed meeting other people with similar interests at the event. “We’re all writing and talking at the same time, and I’ve already met a few new people.”
Sophomore Sophia Nguyen, a member of TAG and the Journaling Club, helped put together the workshop. “We wanted to provide members a safe space to be creative, showcase their art style, and write whatever they want,” Nguyen said.
This is the first time the Journaling Club has done an outside event. The reason for hosting the workshop was to provide more time then the short time lunch provides at their usual meetings. Nguyen, alongside other members of the club, planned extensively. “We discussed what supplies we needed to bring, how long we should hold the event for, and we also had to get permission from the library administrators,” she said.
The workshop, designed for teens, was high in attendance. “It looks like a great success,” Teen Librarian and TAG Advisor Ella Hadrovic said. “I’m really excited, and hopefully we’ll be able to do this again soon.”
In the future, the Journaling Club hopes to host more workshops and events to spread more awareness about the art form. “Journaling is important because there’s a lot of mindfulness put into the art, in writing your thoughts out, remembering specific events in your life, and recognizing the importance of certain moments,” Nguyen said.
The Journaling Club meets every Monday during lunch in C-11.
