“Yellow,” by Amelia Van Driesche, 18, of BurlingtonYoung Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org; (802) 324-9538. A note from this week’s poet, Abby English of Burlington, who writes in response to the Tomorrow Project, a new civic engagement initiative at YWP aiming to empower youth voices: “I would like to believe that home is not a place; it is the people, the family in our lives. We have been given the greatest gift of all being born into this world. This world that is full of love and family and hope. We are meant to be in this world. … Our homes are not the places, they are the people and the family that love us unconditionally. Some people are not immediately given this chance at love, and do not have people to call home. I wrote this poem about why it is important to help all those who do not have a home yet in this world.”Home is more than just a placeAbby English, 18, BurlingtonHome. Sparks of insight spring into your mind when you hear the word, except, this word has so many meanings.Some might ignore it, not seeing a happy memory.Some might light up, knowing that home means safety.Some might care, knowing that not all people have one.Whether it be a cozy cottage, a stunning apartment, a wooden condo,or an urban city,those are places, not homes.Home is where the people are,where the love is, where the pets play.Some are dealt a bad card, and do not have a home. They spend their days without that lovethat you get when you have a family, a home. They might never have the neighborhoods,the pools, the gardens, the backyard campouts.That’s why we, as humans, help —that’s why we can help, that’s what we should help, so we can give others that home, that love, that joy, that safety.Because we all have that one gorgeous, beating heartthat connects us all in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine.Read the story on VTDigger here: Young Writers Project: ‘Home is more than just a place’. ...read more read less