Andover Bread Loaf partners on new initiative

Twenty-one future leaders from around the country came together at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English to launch a new initiative within the Bread Loaf Teacher Network (BLTN). Supported by a $400,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, the new project— BLTN NextGen—is an innovative leadership network for high school students that will engage youth as allies and advocates in writing and acting for social and educational change.

Andover Bread Loaf, a vibrant hub of the Bread Loaf Teacher Network, is a founding member of the Next Generation Leadership Network, a national initiative to develop and support youth from the most under resourced communities who will inform and lead social justice movements across the country. According to ABL Director Lou Bernieri, “NGLN affirms and enriches ABL’s Writing Leader Program, the flagship youth development program in our organization. Now our writing leaders have partners from around the United States in their ongoing struggle for educational equity and social justice.”

“This grant is a tremendous accomplishment for the Bread Loaf School of English," said Middlebury President Laurie Patton. “In supporting Bread Loaf, the Ford Foundation emphasizes the teachers’ network as a quietly but deeply effective medium of social change, and creates new places for that network to be planted and grow.”