manifesto
Reimagining our world with writing, joy, and magic.
We believe that beautiful, wonder-filled, inspiring, and magical spaces can bring about transformative change. When created in collaboration with our community, these spaces nurture a profound sense of belonging.
The Dept. of Make / Believe aims to embody these beliefs. It is a portal of enchantment through which our community of young writers and families enter our writing center, and it is the place where the broader Oakland community can join Chapter 510 by participating in the magic making.
They can do so by buying our young writers’ books and purchasing magical and powerful products, of course, but they can also write, imagine, and manifest with us.
Though at one point in time, this place was a terrible bureaucracy (as the story goes it was called Bureaucracy A-Z), the people who worked here fought against the system, protesting the number counting and paper filing to create a new anti-establishment establishment that puts people before paperwork (unless it is paper in a book written by youth, of course)—a place where all are invited to come in to create and dream and file their name in the great Community Card Catalog. It is a place where make-believing is permitted, permission to be is given, manifestations are officially filed, and fantastic futures are manifested. It is a place where all are encouraged to be vulnerable and brave, to create, to imagine, to dream, to be epic, to wish, to love, to heal, to believe, to laugh, to make, to remember, to let go, to play, to connect, to collaborate, to write, and to read.
It is resistant and radical, and always looking to Oakland’s power and history in activism. It is a space that will be an ever-changing and expandable ecosystem—products, signs, and interactives will be meaningful to Oakland’s youth and our entire amazing, diverse, vibrant, and talented community.
We pay homage to the past, our Ohlone ancestors whose land we live and write on and to the nature that grounds us, and we look to our youth as the writers of a more fantastic future for us all. Our present vision is that all Oakland youth write with confidence and joy.
You may see the remnants of the bureaucracy peaking through the greenery and magic and students’ poetry, fading away as you enter a new youth-made and Oakland-made dimension.
but what does the dept. do for chapter 510?
It celebrates Oakland’s young writers. Our Dept. will celebrate the voices of Oakland’s youth by sharing and selling books and broadsides published by Chapter 510 side by side with books written by authors our students know and love. Look out for other merchandise with our students’ poetry too (poems on jumpsuits, anyone?).
It Helps fund Chapter 510’s programs. All purchases made in the Dept. of Make / Believe go directly to funding Chapter 510’s free writing, bookmaking & publishing programs. We also accept donations in the Dept. through our pneumatic tube system.
It raises awareness about Chapter 510. Raising money is important, but so is raising awareness. Through the perfect amount of mystery, we hope to inspire people to ask “What is this place?” so we can tell them all about our youth writing center. Plus, our amazing merchandise (shirts, mugs, etc.) will help us get noticed in the community at large!
It supports and celebrates Oakland-based artists and writers. Though many of our products will be created in-house, we aim to continually commission and compensate Oakland artists to make lines of products.
It provides jobs and professional development to Oakland youth. Once we are up and running, we aim to hire Oakland youth to work and run the Dept.!
It activates imagination! All of our products and interactivities are made to help folx of all ages MAKE and BELIEVE—to write, be activists, dream, wish, create, love, heal, let go, manifest, and believe in themselves, in magic, and in Oakland.