I may have kicked off the challenge with a dark cloud hanging over my head, but it hasn’t taken long for the power of community to show me the light. Last year, during the month of March, I wrote several posts about the invitation that Dawn, author at Let’s Observe, and I put out to our school community. Could we, as a community, write for 31 days? The answer was an astounding yes, but the rewards far surpassed the achievement of daily writing. You can read more about that here.

This year, Dawn and I extended the invitation again. Could we write for 31 days…again?!? Dawn fashioned a beautiful March calendar that was hung in the hallway, post-it notes and Sharpies ready for people to claim their day for writing. The calendar hung mostly bare for a few days. That is, until Dawn and I planned our ambush. We positioned ourselves in the hall, by the calendar, conveniently placed so that everyone passes by throughout the day, especially during dismissal. As teachers and staff walked students to their buses and the auditorium for dismissal, we invited people to join the challenge. Some sells were easier than others, but by the time the last bus departed, the calendar was mostly full. We had some returning writers and plenty of newcomers. Dawn and I were satisfied that the writing would go on.

On day 2, a Saturday, our second post went live and Dawn sent an email out to our staff with a link. The next time I checked on our blog, I saw this notice from WordPress:

People were reading…on a Saturday. A closer look at the blog notifications and I saw there were already eight comments posted. Last year, our stats showed that many people were reading the blog, but comments never really took off. One new commenter wrote, a teacher who joined our staff midyear this year, “I didn’t quite know what to expect about the writing pieces that would be included here. It’s so interesting that one can feel more connection as parents and/or colleagues when you hear a Slice of Life…Keep sharing people. I am loving reading them! So grateful to be part of the SES community.”

She nailed it. This is the Slice of Life Challenge in a nutshell, whether the community you find is with people you know in real life or people you will never meet, only through comments on a blog. This is the power of being a writer and part of a writing community.

One of the writers who ended up signing up for our school challenge that day in the hallway, at dismissal, said something like “we’ll be better for it.” Dawn took her Sharpie and immediately added the phrase to our calendar.

We’ll be better for it. We already are.