The DREAM Program, Birchwood, Quarter 4, 2012-13

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The Village Mentoring Organization

Birchwood DREAM Quarterly Report June-August 2013 Greetings from DREAM! Summer brought warm weather and plenty of DREAMing this quarter.

Youth participated in cooking activities, trips to Shelburne Farms, North Beach, and a baseball game, and also participated in three summer sessions at Camp DREAM. Though sad summer has ended, they are excited that Champlain mentors have returned this fall. Here is a summary of Birchwood DREAM happenings from the summer:

Highlights from the Quarter Include: The Birchwood community welcomed Julie Jacobs as DREAM’s Summer Community Intern. She organized many fantastic outdoor excursions, including a trip to Shelburne Farms, where youth learned about farming and milked cows.

Four Birchwood teens attended Camp DREAM’s teen session. One girl attended the Northern Vermont Girls Session and five boys attended the Northern Vermont Boys Session.

Six Birchwood teens went sailing with the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center.

Birchwood summer youth made garden stepping stones at the Milton Library.

Weekly Activities with Youth: Julie took six youth berry picking. They made popsicles with the picked berries.

Birchwood youth practiced their cooking skills in the community center.

Birchwood youth joined the Elm Street program for a day of cookie decorating at Barrio Bakery. Later, youth got to know some of the Franklin Square mentees at North Beach, where they went swimming and made s’mores.

A group of Birchwood boys went to Sandbar State Park for an afternoon of swimming.

Julie took a group of kids to a tour of Lake Champlain Chocolates.

Teens attended a drumming performance in Milton.

Two teens went with Julie to the circus in Fairfax.

One teen attended a cooking class at Healthy Living Market.

A group of Birchwood youth went to the Shelburne Museum for the day. Their favorite exhibit was the Ticonderoga Steamboat.

Youth went to Shelburne Farms for a picnic and free concert.

Eight Birchwood youth went to the Lake Monsters baseball game. They were so excited when the Lake Monsters won in the ninth inning.

Youth from Birchwood went to the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Waterbury for a tour.

The Birchwood DREAM program celebrated the end of summer DREAM activities with a trip to Oakledge Park.

Office: 30 Community Drive, South Burlington, VT | Mail: P.O. Box 361, Winooski, VT 05404 │ (802) 338-8979 | info@dreamprogram.org

Special Events for Youth and Mentors: Five teens from four Local Programs participated in a four-day sailing trip with Time of Wonder sailing in Harpsell, Maine. They learned to sail the boat, went swimming and kayaking, and made friends with their fellow sailors.

Eight teens and four chaperones took part in the third annual College Road Trip through a grant from the Children’s Trust Fund. Over eight days, they visited seven colleges and universities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Along the way, they took time for adventures at Camel Beach Water Park, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, and Central Park. The teens learned about the college admissions process, asked questions about college life, and had some adventures along the way.

Capacity Building and Fundraising: This year’s Summer Appeal raised $21,079 from 96 donors. Thank you to all who supported DREAM’s summer programs!

DREAM is continuing to work toward expanding to new cities and is close to launching an initial site in Philadelphia! Thanks to more than 160 individual donors, DREAM is three-quarters of the way to our fundraising goal for this launch. In addition, DREAM has been working closely with a potential housing partner on starting a Local Program at one of its sites!

City Market selected DREAM for their Change for Local Non-Profits program. For each reusable bag customers used in August, City Market donated 5 cents to DREAM. With a grant from the Vermont Women's Trust Fund, DREAM hired a program coordinator to work with three DREAM Ambassadors on a young women's leadership project. The young women surveyed New American families residing at Elm Street in Winooski and at Riverside in Burlington to determine what, if anything, they knew about DREAM, if their youth were involved, and what questions they had. The young women asked the survey questions and provided translation for the families. From their efforts, DREAM has created a brochure translated into Somali to help parents of our refugee youth better understand what DREAM does, and the ambassadors will translate at a community meeting in the future.

Mentor Training and Workshops: This year’s team of 16 Summer Community Interns from across Vermont and the greater Boston area participated in a three-day orientation in Burlington and at Camp DREAM, where Camp staff joined them. Session topics included managing a budget and fundraising; DREAM’s Mentor Boundaries, Transportation Guidelines, & Child Abuse Reporting Procedures; and child behavior management. Interns also took part in team building activities, went on a night hike, and learned more about the communities in which they would plan and lead enriching summer activities for DREAM youth!

Camp:

Camp DREAM celebrated another wonderful summer! This year, Camp welcomed 67 campers, 8 teen counselors-in-training, 6 staff members, and several volunteers over five sessions. Of the 67 campers, 21 attended Camp DREAM for the first time.

During these sessions, campers and counselors swam, canoed, sailed, hiked, built fires, took nature walks, ate healthy and delicious food, watched and performed in skits, played oodles of games, discussed serious issues like bullying, made new friends, and learned more about themselves, their communities, and their environment!

This summer marked the inauguration of the Camp Store, where campers could use their good behavior to purchase small but exciting items, such as DREAM sunglasses.

Three Camp staff served as AmeriCorps members through the Vermont Youth Development Corps (VYDC) AmeriCorps State program. Matt Karkut, Zak Killian, and Erin Knight served respectively as the Adventure Program Coordinator, Lifeguard/Lead Counselor, and Local Foods Program Coordinator/Iron Chef.

Alumni Involvement: Of the 15 mentees who were seniors this year, 11 graduated from high school and joined DREAM’s Alumni Organization. One more expects to receive his diploma in December.

Paul Espina, an Alumni Organization member, member of DREAM's Board of Directors, former mentor, and Camp DREAM enthusiast received a Myra Kraft Community MVP Award by the Patriots Charitable Foundation. The award recognized Paul's many years of amazing volunteer service and came with a $5,000 gift to DREAM. Alumni Sandy Mervak, Paul Espina, and Andrew Lassiter each volunteered for at least one session at Camp DREAM. Laura Alger was the second mentee alumna to be a counselor at Camp DREAM. Kate Cahalane, an Elm Street/University of Vermont alumna, joined the office as a Program Empowerment VISTA through the Vermont Youth Tomorrow (VYT) AmeriCorps VISTA program.

Office: Three DREAM teens joined Executive Director Mike Loner, Camp Director Ashleigh Ellsworth-Keller, and the Burlington HUD Field Office Director on Channel 17/Town Meeting TV for a televised interview.

DREAM said goodbye to Kate Piniewski, Britt Wedenoja, and Zahra Ohldin, who finished their AmeriCorps terms this quarter.

Staff welcomed two new AmeriCorps VISTA members who are serving through Vermont Youth Tomorrow (VYT). Kate Cahalane and Mark Hengstler will be supporting DREAM’s Local Programs in Windsor and Chittenden counties. A third AmeriCorps VISTA member, Alison Siegel, joins them for her second year in southern Vermont.

Two new AmeriCorps State members, Katie Purcell and Asha Carter, joined DREAM’s Boston office. Katie and Asha are serving with DREAM’s Local Programs in Boston

through the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship (MPF) and Ambassadors of Mentoring/Highland Street Corps Ambassadors through Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP) respectively.

The new AmeriCorps members from Vermont and Boston joined forces in Burlington for orientation, during which they learned about DREAM’s program model, DREAM’s technological systems, and how to support Local Programs.

Thank you for your ongoing support of DREAM. If you would like additional or more detailed information, please contact me by email or by phone. You can always look back at past reports or other programs’ reports by going to: http://dreamprogram.org/mentor-program/vermont/localprogram-reports.

DREAM big, Mark Hengstler Program Empowerment Director VYT AmeriCorps VISTA mark@dreamprogram.org 802.338.8979