Shara Pelz's Give Miami Day 2023

I began teaching legal writing to students who are incarcerated with Exchange for Change in 2017. I witnessed the immeasurable impact E4C's programming has on the students involved; but it also changed my life in countless ways.

Almost immediately, the prescribed roles of teacher and student were flipped. I may have been teaching legal writing and advocacy, but in the process, my students were teaching me about humanity, empathy, and understanding. Fast forward to today, and I now taught in three institutions and am currently teaching at Everglades Correctional Institution.

Exchange for Change (E4C) has grown from a single writing class of 17 students at Dade Correctional Institution (DCI) in 2014 to an average of more than 75 classes annually. We enroll nearly 300 students per semester at state prisons, county jails and private juvenile residential centers. Our writing courses range from traditional fiction, non-fiction and poetry to specialty courses, including journalism, writing in Spanish, trauma and recovery, memoir, personal essay, spoken word, literature, screenwriting, and our signature Exchange Class. This unique course partners incarcerated writers with students attending higher educational institutions including The University of Miami, Miami Dade College, Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University, which rewards our students with Continuing Education Units for select classes. Our Wellness courses include breathwork, meditation, mindfulness, and movement. 

Our students have been featured in local and national publications as well as our own literary journal, Don't Shake the Spoon: A Journal of Prison Writing.  They have won awards and are part of PEN America's newly launched Writers Bureau. 

A signature component of our program is to create proximity, which we do through bringing community members into state prisons through our our Prison Visits for a Change program and our twice yearly showcase graduations. We also host local programming and are regular presenters at Miami Book Fair.