Year: 2008

Partner

Rodale Publishing (Legacy Media Partnership)

Location

New York, NY

Context / Challenge

Young people were passionate about storytelling but had little access to the publishing industry or pathways to share their voices at scale. Partnering with Rodale Publishing—a legacy company behind Men’s Health, Prevention, and Runner’s World—we set out to close that gap and teach them to create their own media destiny.

Role

Program architect, mentor, and "World Builder" — designing a bridge program that connected grassroots creative expression with major corporate media infrastructure.

What We Built

A publishing and media lab that gave teens hands-on training in writing, editing, magazine production, and media entrepreneurship. Participants worked directly with industry professionals while producing content of their own, utilizing the publishing house as a real-world classroom.

Approach / Methods

Experiential learning, intensive professional mentorship, and collaborative co-creation with editors and writers. This program leveraged the Fellowship Academy model, turning youth into "Role Models" and published creators.

Impact / Outcomes

Youth transitioned from being readers and consumers of media to published creators with technical skills, deep industry insight, and the confidence to see themselves as entrepreneurial storytellers with a professional platform.

Story

“We showed them their words could be on the shelves — not just in their notebooks — proving that when you master the media, you truly create the future.”

Tags

Publishing, Storytelling, Media, Education, Youth Development, Corporate Partnership, Experiential Learning