Freedom Writers Foundation

The Freedom Writers Foundation is a non-profit organization created to "inspire young, underprivileged students to pick up pens instead of guns." It was founded by Erin Gruwell, and John Tu (cofounder of the Kingston Technology Company) is a benefactor.

The Freedom Writers Foundation is a nonprofit organization which was founded in 1997. It positively affects communities by decreasing high school dropout rates through the replication and enhancement of the Freedom Writers Method.

"The organization’s overall purpose is to:
· Create opportunities for students to reach their full academic potential and aspire to higher education
· Publicly and systematically promote an educational philosophy that values, upholds, and honors diversity.
· Inspire students to realize their roles as vital members of their communities."

“Following the Rodney King Riots and the O.J. Simpson trial, the mood in our city was unsettling, and on our first day of high school, we had only three things in common: we hated school, we hated our teacher, and we hated each other." This is a quote from the original Freedom Writers. Brought together in the classroom of Erin Gruwell, these students were taught to accept each other and accept themselves.

They all felt that they had been written off. “Low test scores, juvenile hall, alienation, and racial hostility helped us fit the labels the educational system placed on us: ‘unteachable,’ ‘below average,’ and 'delinquents.'" Gruwell helped the students to overcome their disadvantages by having them read books by other teenagers so they would be able to relate to the stories.

Gruwell also invited guest speakers to talk to her students, including Miep Gies, a woman who helped Anne Frank's family hide during the Holocaust, and Zlata Filipović, who wrote her own diary when she was only eleven years old. The students also went to a Holocaust museum in Los Angeles called the Museum of Tolerance.

The visit from Zlata Filipović was the inspiration for the students' own writing. In the class they were able to write anonymous journal entries about what they faced in their everyday lives. They were able to write about things that they had never had the chance to express before. Through this, they discovered that, “Writing is a powerful form of self expression that could help us deal with our past and move forward."

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