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[ Social Entrepreneurship ]
Lifting Literacy: Putting a 5-Year-Old Playwright
in the Spotlight
haron O’Brien had a dream before landing in “I didn’t want to let it go,” she says. “But how
Sentrepreneurship classes at McGuire in 2004. could I move this forward?” The McGuire Center
She wanted to build on her degrees in theater showed her how: by starting a nonprofit business
education and cinematography. that would endure.
“McGuire forced us to validate our reasons to
go nonprofit and gave us experience in how to be
businesslike, how to do a budget, with expenses
and revenue.”
“I attribute my long-term success to that. I
am growing it today because it started out with
understanding the business model and how to
make it all work.”
Twelve years later, her nonprofit, called
Stories That Soar!, encourages the writing
and staging of dramas at schools, with three
employees and 25 or so paid actors, dancers,
singers and musicians. She works with 13 local
schools in six school districts.
On stage, the professional actors give student
writers a chance to see their stories as theater.
With creative costumes — crowns, scepters,
wands, a dog nose, a monkey mask — they
perform stories as short as three sentences or up
to two pages, written by children as young as 5
or 6, in any language. Some stories are the usual
fairies and dragons, but some are about real life
in a family. “One kid wrote about visiting his dad
in jail,” O’Brien recalls.
A show includes 20 to 25 stories, with funding
of $5,000 and up. Most of that comes in from
Sharon O'Brien and three Stories That grants and donations, while schools kick in a
Soar! actors with second-graders at They perform stories as
Ochoa Elementary School “host fee” of about 30 percent to the partnership.
Stories That Soar! was invited to merge
short as three sentences in 2011 with four other local outfits to form
Literacy Connects, where O’Brien remains on the
or up to two pages, management team.
To keep her entrepreneurial skills sharp,
written by children as O’Brien entered the McGuire Center’s recent
Social Impact Pitch Competition for early-stage
social ventures with a pitch for a new nonprofit
young as 5 or 6. program: Stories that Soar! High, an addition
to high school drama curriculum focused on
community literacy, leadership and service
learning. She won second place and $10,000.
38 ARIZONA ALUMNI MAGAZINE
