Our success owes them a large debt. Contents Thank Yous First Funding for a one-year pilot arrived from Idaho's Department of Education Title I Division, thanks to the vision of Rosemary Ardinger. Sponsorships that first year also came from US Bank's MelloDee Thornton, the John F. Nagel Foundation, from you, the Log Cabin membership, and from the Log Cabin's board of directors. Since that first year we have received support from Boise Cascade, Bank of America, the Whittenberger Foundation, the 101 Annual Boise Open presented by Albertson's, the Troxell Fund, Piper Jaffray, Altrusa International, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, NBC, Idaho's Department of Health and Welfare, the Idaho Commission on the Arts, and the Idaho Community Foundation. With all of their very generous support, WITS has come a long way.
Writers make all the difference, of course.
They've published almost two dozen books among them and hundreds of poems and essays and stories. It's their passion for language and for sharing that passion with students that makes the program what it is. WITS Residency WITS writers typically begin each session with stories, songs, poems, questions, pictures, sounds, ideas, and objects. This prewriting exercise frequently surprises and excites the students, evoking memories from the past or glimpses into the future. In this way, writing becomes a multisensory process, developing skills of observation, interpretation, communication, and creative expression, skills that are vital to academic and social success.