The DREAM Program, Inc. 41 Dearborn St. Boston, MA 02119 (617) 699-8408 tel www.dreamprogram.org
February 15th, 2012
The Madison Park Village DREAM Update January 2012 The mentors and youth were very excited to see each other after winter break and to have the new semester of DREAM start up. DREAM Programming: 1/13 (23 mentors, 30 children): The group hopped on the T and travelled to Kelly Rink by the Stony Brook T station for an afternoon of ice skating. 1/20 (27 mentors, 27 children): The mentors have decided to continue to focus on small group or one-on-one activities. The youth and their mentors split into groups and participated in a variety of activities including t-shirt decorating, making s’mores, building marshmallow and pretzel structures, and exploring campus. 1/27 (27 mentors, 29 children): Once again everyone split into smaller groups or one-onones. Groups sold spaghetti dinner tickets, built Lego forts, made friendship bracelets, and painted nails. Programming Opportunities: Shamrock Dreams: Through Mass Mentor and the Boston Celtics, DREAM has continued to receive tickets to Celtics games and had some pretty incredible seats. It is a great opportunity for matches to take in a game and spend time together outside of Friday programming. This month we had 11 matches attend games. Some of our youth were also able to participate in the “High-Five Tunnel” that high-fives the players as they run onto the floor and one youth was even able to be a ball boy for a game! Ski Trip Planning: A lot of the youth have been asking for the opportunity to get out of the city and to go skiing or snowboarding. So Eric, one of the older teenagers in the program, has been working with me over the last month plan a ski trip for DREAM youth ages 10+ in the Madison Park Village and Orchard Gardens communities. The youth will be raising money to go on the trip and we have received a great package deal from Killington Mountain and help from Mass Housing for transportation. Spaghetti Dinner: The youth attending the ski trip helped put on a Spaghetti Dinner to raise the money they need to attend the tip. The dinner was held on January 29th at 122 Dewitt Dr. in Madison Park. The youth sold tickets to the dinner, worked to set up the room, make the food, serve, and clean up. We brought in over $300! Community Collaboration: Mentoring Day at the Statehouse: Jessica Stein and I both attended Mass Mentoring Partnership’s annual mentoring day at the statehouse on January 19th. We heard about the great mentoring work happening across the commonwealth, the importance of funding