{"id":2316,"date":"2013-05-28T14:29:46","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T18:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=2316"},"modified":"2013-06-05T17:17:55","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T21:17:55","slug":"students-to-celebrate-aurora-and-its-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/students-to-celebrate-aurora-and-its-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Students to celebrate Aurora and its people"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

A community is only as strong as the people within it, so what does your community mean to you?<\/p>\n

That is the question the Aurora Cultural Centre is putting to Aurorans between the ages of 5 and 18 to define \u201cMy Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Aurora\u201d is an initiative spearheaded by the Centre to celebrate Aurora\u2019s Sesquicentennial with a \u201c150 Youth\/150 Years\u201d, a photography and creative writing exhibition. Going out to local schools and through workshops and camp programs, organizers of the initiative are asking \u201cWhat does Aurora mean to you?\u201d, \u201cWhere is your favourite space or place in Aurora?\u201d, \u201cIf you had a wish for Aurora, what would it be?\u201d, and \u201cIn 150 years, the future youth will be able to see your images and read your words \u2013 what would you like them to see and read?\u201d<\/p>\n

Put on your thinking caps because the deadline for writing or photography submissions is Friday, June 7. If selected, your own words and images will hang in the Great Hall Gallery of the Aurora Cultural Centre from June 19 through September 3 in honour of Aurora\u2019s Sesquicentennial.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Aurora\u201d is the initiative of the Centre through the efforts of Clare Bolton, who is looking after the creative writing entries, and Stephanie Nicolo, who is turning a keen eye towards the photography. <\/p>\n

Ms. Bolton says with the writing component, which had a bit of a head-start earlier this year through some of the Centre\u2019s March Break creative writing programs, she has been surprised by the creativity and comfort level of local students in expressing themselves in what the Town means to them, particularly the people within the community. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey are very open and very uninhibited,\u201d she says. \u201cOne of the young women wrote a beautiful poem and in it she included Aurora, the Goddess of the Morn. Another prompt was to write to a famous person, personality, or someone they really admired to say what they liked about Aurora. Stones from Aurora, NY inspired some boys and they were able to open up. What surprised me was they were really comfortable and open expressing themselves. Some of them had really strong opinions on Aurora specifically, and others just preferred to express themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am passionate about writing and hearing people\u2019s voices and while I love working with adults, I have just been pleasantly surprised [with the youngsters]. It was really a team effort to have the images and the words.\u201d<\/p>\n

In looking at the images that could form this exhibition, Ms. Nicolo wants to leave it open for the youth to capture images of Aurora that truly reflect what the community means to them and particular elements of the town that really resonate with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe theme for the individual pieces can really be quite broad, but it all comes back to what Aurora means to this youthful person,\u201d she says. \u201cI am leaving the creativity to them as much as possible by giving them this opportunity to showcase. In terms of who influenced them, it can be family members, it could be a teacher they had, somebody from their school being taught in Aurora, it could be a spiritual leader who has influenced them, or even the guy at Subway who knows exactly what you want to order before any words come out of your mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

In getting a mental plan of what the exhibition is going to look like, Ms. Nicolo says it has been interesting to see what has come in from the creative writing side. Themes indicate Aurora is being seen in a very positive light, as well as positive insights into the community both for today, and through a lens looking to the future. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a chance to brag about your hometown, to tell us something interesting, and is a way to participate in the celebrations,\u201d said Ms. Bolton. \u201cThey can invite their friends to see their work on display and if they need any help, we can guide them. It is fun to express yourself and it is fun to be heard, and we don\u2019t always have the opportunity to be able to show it in a public space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Ms. Nicolo: \u201cIt gives an insight of what influences the youth of Aurora and that is the youth of Aurora and what relationships they have with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo and written submissions can be made directly to submissions@auroraculturalcentre.ca. For further information, call Stephanie at 905-713-1818.<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A community is only as strong as the people within it, so what does your community mean to you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/2013-05-28-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-Bm","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 20:34:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}