By Jared Brush ’15 | Staff Writer

When most students venture out of their comfort zone, they do not get feedback from a nationally acclaimed website. Miranda Barry ’16 does something that scares her and blogs about it weekly for an American Literature project, called 20 Time.  When she came up with the idea, Barry did not think the major organization SoulPancake, created by “The Office” actor Rainn Wilson, would post her blog on their Facebook page.

 Nicholas Provenzano, Barry’s English teacher, tweeted out Miranda’s blog. Because Provenzano has over 32,000 followers on Twitter, it was easily noticed by Soul Pancake’s media team.

 “We get so excited to read and learn about people who are challenging themselves to grow in their humanity,” Sales and Marketing Manager at SoulPancake, Correy Stoner said. “That is exactly what Miranda is doing and it’s incredibly inspiring. She is being authentic and honest and raw, and we are extremely encouraged by the risk that she is taking by try something everyday that scares her.”

Stoner said Wilson created SoulPancake in 2008 for the sole purpose of wanting to leverage his celebrity for something good. Wilson felt that the internet at the time was not a place that was being used positively, so he created a space where people could openly discuss differing points of view in a respectful way.

The website and the SoulPancake Youtube channel have the same central mission to get people to explore their humanity, embrace others differences and chew on “life’s big questions”, Stoner said.

 This is exactly what Barry is doing in her project; she is not doing anything extreme but going out of her comfort zone, said Barry. One example from Barry’s blog is Day 38, when she went down South’s halls and complimented as many strangers as she could.

 Provenzano said he is not sure if he is going to continue the project next year for his future students. Every year Provenzano tries to change up the class to keep it different and try new things. How successful the final projects in May end up will be the deciding factor, Provenzano said.

 Whether or not Provenzano continues the project, Barry is thinking about carrying on her blog after the project is finished, Barry said.

 “I definitely don’t think I will be doing something that scares me every day because it’s a lot, but I might continue,” said Barry.

 Barry is happy the she get to experience the 20 Time project, Barry said.

 “It’s cool that a student had something seen by thousands and thousands of people around the world,” said Provenzano. “That’s the cool part about Twitter and social media is that the most random things will be picked up, and her thing got picked up by a group of people that make these amazing videos, like Kid President, that have hundreds of thousands viewers. That’s a great example of how Twitter or Facebook can be used to do good things in class and is not always bad or cyber bullying like some may think.”

Here is a link to Barry’s blog: http://mirandabgps20timd.blogspot.com/