The DREAM Program, Madison Park, October, 2012

The DREAM Program, Inc. 41 Dearborn St. Roxbury, MA 02119 (617) 699-8408 www.dreamprogram.org

November 15, 2012 The Madison Park Village DREAM Update October 2012 Madison Park Village DREAM entered its second month of programming for this year and welcomed fall with a plethora of fun activities.

DREAM Programming:  10/05: There was no official programming due to Columbus Day weekend, but some matches spent time together one-on-one.  10/12 (23 mentees, 23 mentors): Programming was a mixture of one-on-one activities and small groups. Activities included: visiting the dining hall, playing a paper football tournament, hangman, games in International Village, a video game tournament, painting while watching The Pagemaster, and a pumpkin painting dance party.  10/19 (23 mentees, 23 mentors): Matches participated in a variety of programming including painting pumpkins and having a dance party, playing games in the Curry Student Center, sitting down for a meal in the dining, playing online and video games, and going on a trip to Red Mango. One partner match painted and sketched out designs and drawings.  10/26 (21 mentees, 34 mentors): Mentors and mentees divided into groups; one group made arts and crafts related to a Halloween, watched a Halloween themed movie, and had a monster mash dance party. The other group played Capture the Flag, football, ghosts and graveyard, and kickball.

Programming Opportunities:  Cranberry Bogs Harvesting (4 mentees, 2 mentors): On Columbus Day, DREAM office staff, Chad Butt, Rachel Lieberman, and myself, along with two mentors and ten youth from Madison Park and Orchard Gardens drove down to Duxbury for a visit to a cranberry bog harvest. While in Duxbury, we met up with Sarah and Jeff Husted, friends of DREAM that sponsor a handful of adventure trips to the South Shore each year. The morning was spent playing in Sarah and Jeff’s backyard, exploring some forest near their house, and roasting marshmallows. After lunch, we headed to the bogs where we learned about dry harvesting cranberries, sorted cranberries by hand, and tasted freshly picked cranberries. Following our time at the cranberry bogs, we capped off the day with ice cream and a visit to an arcade.

Program Development:  Mentor Recruitment: The mentors recruited 10 new mentors! These new mentors will enable the program to smoothly transition mentees to a new mentor when if their mentor is going abroad or on coop next semester. It will also allow for the program to bring in more youth in the Spring Semester.

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Parents’ Weekend Fundraiser: The mentors raised $259 through t-shirt and sunglass sales during Parent’s Weekend on October 27th.

DREAMstock: On the 14th, the Boston DREAM office hosted the second annual Boston DREAMstock, an in-depth training for mentors. The event is a great opportunity for mentors from the Boston area DREAM programs to come together, discuss best practices, plan future collaborations, and have some fun. The day included the following workshops: DREAM's alumni organization, program development, the difference between a friend and a mentor, healthy relationships among youth, poverty literacy and the resources DREAM has to offer. We were grateful to Orchard Gardens’ Boys and Girls Club for donating space and Ben and Jerry’s for donating ice cream.

Community Collaboration:  Massachusetts Mentoring Partnership Summit: On October 17th Rachel Lieberman attended the first ever MMP Summit.  Dudley/Roxbury Corridor Safety Task Force: Chad and Rachel attended the Dudley/Roxbury Corridor Safety Task Force meeting on October 22nd.

DREAM Office:  Massachusetts Promise Fellowship (MPF) Education Surveys: MPF is working to collect data about how youth (grades 4-12) view school and if their participation in DREAM affects their opinions. The majority of youth in the Madison Park program have completed the MPF Education Survey. This survey has also served as a great tool to help DREAM update our database, which tracks the schools that our youth attend. In conjunction with the surveys, focus groups were conducted to learn more about subjects in which the youth were interested, levels of motivation while at school, personalized attitudes about school, and future plans for their academic careers.  DREAM’s BIG Night Out: DREAM's Boston Finance Committee held a DREAM's Big Night Out, a fundraising event, at the Rattlesnake on the night of October 18th. Over 60 people attended and the night was a huge success.

Keep DREAMing!

Zahra Ohldin, Program Empowerment Director Massachusetts Promise Fellow/Americorps