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The Village Mentoring Organization
Salmon Run DREAM Quarterly Report June-August 2015 Greetings from DREAM! The Salmon Run DREAM Program has finished up a summer full of exciting and enriching programming! Mentors and mentees have returned to school and are looking forward to the start of school year DREAM!
Highlights from the Quarter Include:
DREAM welcomed Summer AmeriCorps members, Mikayla Stark and Dana Heng and Summer Community Intern, Noah Bender. Mikayla, Dana, and Noah provided fun and educational programming this summer! Mentees were invited to spend a week at Camp DREAM in Fletcher, VT! A group of Vermont teens went on the fifth annual College Road Trip where they joined teens from Boston and Philadelphia to tour colleges in Washington DC! DREAM teens from across Vermont joined forces with Time of Wonder Sailing to go on exciting 4 day sailing trips off the coast of Maine!
Weekly Activities with Youth:
The group took advantage of the warm weather! Days were spent playing games outside, making art, taking trips to the lake, and swimming at the pool! The group took a bike ride around Burlington. Salmon Run enjoyed hiking this summer; they completed both Mount Philo and Snake Mountain! Swimming was also a popular activity; the group went to Meyer’s Pool several times! Dana hosted an arts and crafts afternoon at her house in Burlington Salmon Run youth got to spend an afternoon on Lake Champlain learning how to sail with the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center. Youth attended a bookmaking workshop. A group enjoyed an afternoon at Oakledge Park!
Special Events for Children and Mentors:
For the fourth year in a row, DREAM staff took several teens to Maine for a week of living on a sailboat and learning the ropes (pun intended) of sailing in the ocean. Captain John Reid once again manned the helm, and we are grateful for his generosity in spearheading these trips and providing the boat and instruction, but most of all opening his heart to DREAMers and exhibiting an extreme degree of patience! Some of the highlights of the trips were giving teens the opportunity to drive and steer the boat, trying new foods prepared in unique ways in the ship’s small galley, using a bathroom on a boat (a very interesting experience to be sure), playing BananaGrams (word game), learning sailing terminology, swimming, exploring and visiting barrier islands, and living five days away from cell phones and other technologies, which is so important for these formative experiences to have their greatest impact. Most of all, each sailing session provides the opportunity for teens to learn and challenge themselves in many ways they never thought possible! This quarter eight Vermont teens joined DREAM teens from Boston and Vermont on a College Road Trip adventure to Washington, DC. In addition to college tours, the group also went to the movies, an aquarium, sightseeing, and so much more. A highlight of the trip was a visit to
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