The third annual Listen! Literacy & Arts Festival, to be held October 2013, is an outdoor cultural arts event organized by 2-Cent through the help of our youth volunteers. Listen! provides New Orleans' youth with an opportunity to use their talents in the literary, musical, visual, and media arts to inspire change. Focusing on the violence and education crises within our community, Listen! offers an opportunity for New Orleans' young people to form alliances for social activism, to voice their concerns, and to strategize for community betterment. All we ask is that the city come and listen. We partner with Scholastic, Inc. to give out 10,000 brand new books and also to provide literacy training for parents at the festival. We reach out to local schools to encourage student participation by way of performances and essay contests.