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The Village Mentoring Organization
The Madison Park Village DREAM Update April 2014 The Madison Park Village/Northeastern University Local Program ended the semester with three fun-filled activities. For their culminating experience, the group went to Kimball Farms. DREAM Programming: 4/4: The program enjoyed the nice weather and held programming outside. The majority of the matches played field games, soccer, and basketball. A few matches also attended the Big Apple Circus. 4/12: DREAM held its third annual trip to Kimball Farms on Saturday, April 12th. The youth enjoyed the various games and eating ice cream. 4/18: For the last DREAM Friday of the semester, the program broke up into small groups. Some of the teen girl matches went to the DREAM Office for the first ever Teen Friday. The older boys hung out outside and attended the Centennial. The younger boys and girls made t-shirts and played outside.
Program Development: Elections: The mentors held their elections for next semester. Officers will be: o Co-chairs : Angie Huang and Rachel Stevens o Treasurer: Eric Ishahak o Secretary: Lauren Schenk o Recruitment Co-chairs: Andrew Horowitz and Manny Lubin o Fundraising Chair: Amelia Llanos Community Collaboration: EMS Partnership: The program partnered with the Northeastern EMS program to provide CPR Certification Training for anyone living in Madison Park Village. These took place throughout April. The mentors handed out flyers to families to notify them of this opportunity. DREAM Office: Teen Program: The original teen event planned for April 18th was postponed due to weather and scheduling conflicts. Instead, a group of female mentees and mentors from the Madison Park/Northeastern University Local Program came to the DREAM Office for a screening of “The Halls: Class Dismissed,” a web-series produced by the Boston Public Health Commission focusing on teen dating relationships. The group watched all
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eight episodes and the screening was intermixed with discussion about the heavy topics included in the show. School Engagement Focus Group: I conducted a school engagement focus group with seven youth in our Somerville Housing Authority/Tufts University Local Program. The grades of participants ranged from 4th to 6th. Results from this focus group will be included in the composite analysis the Mass Promise Fellowship will publish based on the data from all 40 host sites. South Boston Local Program: Recruitment for mentors at University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston continued this month. Already recruited mentors have been working with Jason to table at the campus and recruit more mentors. The mentoring program will officially pilot in Fall 2014. Summer Intern Hiring: We finalized our hiring for our Summer Community Interns and have two amazing students onboard and excited for the summer. Throughout the month of May, Jason and I will be planning out the calendar of DREAM summer activities.
Keep DREAMing! Katie Purcell Program Empowerment Director Massachusetts Promise Fellow Katie@dreamprogram.org