The Ones I Bring with Me

Since its founding in 2014, the Drake Community Press (DCP) has been serving a community readership on issues of interest and concern to Iowans.  DCP partners with Iowa organizations to promote positive interaction and community betterment, as well as provides students with practical knowledge of book editing, design, and production with a cross-disciplinary and collaborative focus.  Working within the unique framework of a community-publishing model, DCP engages in community writing projects where all stakeholders are writing with each other.

While the results of a DCP project culminates in the release of a book, the Press is critically invested in relationship-building among individuals and groups, where all collaborators gain a deeper understanding of their community.

The sales of all DCP books go directly to a community beneficiary, to help further the cause and development of the partnering community organization. Since its release in early 2014, DCP’s most recent book—The Ones I Bring With Me: Iowa’s Young Latinas on Identity, Education, and Success—has raised nearly $15,000 with its collaborator, Al Éxito, a Latinx mentoring program for middle and high school students across central Iowa.

I worked as photography supervisor for this book and contributed several of my own images.