The Impact of ABL

Lawrence, Massachusetts

Andover Bread Loaf's primary site is Lawrence, Massachusetts, where its impact in schools and the larger community dates back to 1987. ABL serves students in grades pre-K through grade 12, teachers, and community organizers. ABL offers summer programs for youth and adults, year-round student programming in Lawrence, a professional development network for adults, and conferences and workshops throughout the year. ABL’s Writing Leader program fosters youth development, training high school and college youth to be teachers, leaders, and activists.

ABL’s 2023–2024 activity centered on literacy-based workshops and intensives in collaboration with Lawrence community organizations and Lawrence Public Schools for over 1,000 students in grades K–10, as well as over 52 educators in all grades. ABL-affiliated programming ran at the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence (Slice of Bread Loaf), the Lawrence History Center (Rising Loaves), Phillips Academy (Lawrence Student Writers’ Workshop), and the Lawrence Public Library (Writing and Arts Camp).

ABL students in the Lawrence-based partner program, Rising Loaves

ABL partners with Lawrence-based schools, nonprofit organizations, and cultural institutions to run programs like the Rising Loaves, held annually at the Lawrence History Center.

Across the U.S. and around the world

While primarily based in Andover and Lawrence, Massachusetts, ABL also supports programming in sites across the U.S., partnering with communities to offer professional development, share resources, organize conferences, and support community-led programming.

Additionally, ABL's reach extends outside of the United States through its active international network. ABL’s international network includes educators from New York City, Lawrence, Boston, New Orleans, Puerto Rico, India, El Salvador, and Pakistan.

ABL's summer Adult Workshop for Educators (AWE) brings teachers and community organization staff members to campus for intensive training and lived experience in the ABL pedagogical model.

In 2024, 16 adults from around the world, including four from Lawrence, traveled to the Andover campus to participate in this intensive, two-week graduate professional development program, focused on critical literacy for social justice. The workshop provided a supportive community for teachers to work on and share their own writing, as well as share best practices and classroom concerns with one another. Discussions focused on how to engage and develop young people as leaders, how to support students dealing with trauma and other behavioral challenges, and how to work with students with disabilities.

ABL summer programs offered by Phillips Academy and Lawrence partner institutions in 2023.

ABL academic year programs offered by Phillips Academy and Lawrence partner institutions

youth participants in the flagship Lawrence Student Writers' Workshop (LSWW)

visiting artists on campus

119

Writing Leaders across ABL summer and school-year programming

alumni of the Adult Workshop for Educators (AWE)—four from Lawrence—on full fellowships in the master's program at the Bread Loaf School of English

93%

of youth in the LSWW identify as Latine, Black, or Multi-racial

94%

of youth in the LSWW report speaking a language other than English at home

90%

of youth in the LSWW report increasing their confidence in writing and creative arts

88%

of Writing Leaders report increasing their confidence in their own abilities and feeling inspired to achieve academically

2024: Summer Overview

185 youth served by ABL summer programs, ranging in age from first grade through high school.
- Grades 1-5 participated in the Slice program at the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence.
- Grades 6-8 participated in the Rising Loaves program at the Lawrence History Center.
- Grades 9-12 participated in the Lawrence Student Writers Workshop at Phillips Academy.
- Grades 6-12 participated in the ABL Library Writing and Arts Camp at the Lawrence Public Library