In the spirit of writing...
Launched in 1990, GLTF’s annual A Christmas Carol Writing Contest is a literacy program open to all Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) students in grades six, seven and eight. Every year, over 1,000 students participate by writing original stories, songs and poems inspired by the timeless themes in Dickens classic tale. In 2009–10, over 2,000 students from nearly 50 CMSD schools submitted entries to the contest setting a new record for student participation.

Each school is allowed to submit one winner per grade level to the Festival, and those essays are adjudicated by a panel of local educators, artists, and community members. From those, six grand prize winners are chosen, two per grade level, and those students receive an awards banquet attended by their teacher, members of their family, local actors and special guests, including, in 2009, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson.

Grand Prize winners also receive free tickets to A Christmas Carol, and several additional special prizes. All participating students receive admission to a special student matinee performance of the play, exclusively for a CMSD audience, with tickets and transportation provided in part by the School District. At the conclusion of this special matinee, school winners are brought up on stage, awarded A Christmas Carol t-shirts, meet Aled Davies, the actor portraying Ebenezer Scrooge, and Dougfred Miller, who plays Jacob Marley.

Robert Searles poses with GLTF's Ebenezer Scrooge actor Aled Davies at the awards dinner.		Aled Davies congratulates writing contest winners from the stage after a special student matinee performance of A Christmas Carol earlier in December.
The six grand prize winners of Great Lakes Theater Festival's twentieth annual A Christmas Carol writing contest pose with Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson at the awards dinner. Represented are Verquisha Hudson, sixth grade, Carl and Louis Stokes Academy; Imani Brown, 8th grade, Sunbeam; Lashara Henderson, sixth grade, Sunbeam; Mayor Frank Jackson; Robert Searles, seventh grade, Denison; Amber Rodriguez, seventh grade, James A. Garfield; and Renna Sherrard, 8th grade, R.G. Jones.