Angela Warner: "Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining"

"Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining"

King's College in fall 

September marks a month of change. Leaves begin to turn from summer greens to autumn oranges and reds. Days become shorter. Heat begins to rush out of the air and a cool, crisp wind takes its place as if the world’s refrigerator door was left open. Pumpkins become ripe, ready for picking and carving. Students enter and exit classrooms once again. Halloween is approaching. Autumn is here. Yes, September's changes have been especially ripe with opportunities.

Personally, September is bursting with educational opportunities for me. Autumn has always meant dusting off text books and heading back to campus. However, my studies at King’s College were supposed to conclude when I graduated this past May. The key words being “supposed to.” The decision I made to take a year off between graduation and graduate school was becoming an overwhelmingly heavy elephant on my chest. It was time to relieve that burden, so I enrolled in courses once again.

English 327: Writing for the Arts. What did this class entail? I had never seen it offered in prior course selections before, and this was exactly what I needed for the fall: intellectual and artistic enrichment. This was no ordinary writing course. We as students, along with Dr. Noreen O’Connor, are “hired” for the first half of the semester as writing professionals to advertise, promote, and fundraise for a child’s play, Bunnicula. Our first “client” is Arts YOUniverse, an organization devoted to encouraging artistic development within one’s self and the community as a whole.

The Susquehanna a block from
Arts YOUniverse and King's College

However, like autumn’s transformative nature we too faced the need to change due to extenuating circumstances: our cities were flooding. Hurricane Irene and tropical storm Lee transformed autumn’s celebrated new beginnings into a time of begging for an end to this season's rainfall and elevated river levels. September has now changed some Luzerne County residents’ lives forever since the Suquehanna crested at new heights. Tones became somber instead of celebratory; DJs over the airwaves played ditties like Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” Events were cancelled; restaurants and businesses closed; people were evacuated.

The West Pittston Library, which lost
most of its collections in the flooding

Although both King’s campus and Arts YOUniverse were thankfully spared from torrential waters, the community as a whole was not as fortunate. As a collective, students in my "Writing for the Arts" class have decided to donate some of the proceeds of our production to the reconstruction of the children’s section of the West Pittston Library, which suffered some of the worst damage. In doing so, we would like to create new opportunities for celebration as homes, businesses and restaurants are rebuilt. Not only is the production of Bunnicula exciting in and of itself, the opportunity that has arisen for us to give back to the community is a new reason to celebrate.