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The Village Mentoring Organization
Windsor-Union Square DREAM Quarterly Report March – May 2014 Greetings from DREAM! The Windsor – Union Square DREAM program has finished up another wonderful semester of activities. Though youth are sad to see their mentors leaving for summer break, they look forward to their return in September and have a whole summer of exciting programming to keep them busy! Here is a summary of all the Windsor-Union Square DREAM happenings from the last quarter.
Highlights from the quarter include:
Windsor celebrated a successful term together with a Saturday culminating at Maple Lanes, where mentees bowled with their mentors and ended the day on a good note with some icecream. Mentors hosted a community dinner that brought parents, mentees and mentors together in Windsor one Friday evening.
Fridays:
Windsor mentees enjoyed a lot of exciting Fridays on the green, once it was nice enough outside! One of the more memorable Fridays this quarter was a campus-wide scavenger hunt. Spring Fling at Dartmouth brought mentees from DREAM together with other Dartmouth College mentoring programs for an afternoon of corn hole, cookie decorating, face painting, musical chairs and arts and crafts.
Special Events for Children and Mentors:
The DREAM Office hosted a Teen Identity Retreat April 4-5, where teens gathered in Burlington and participated in informative sessions about health and identity, talked with panelists from local organizations, had a Q+A with a Burlington Police Officer, tried out Zumba and made connections with teens from all over Vermont. DREAM welcomed 100 mentors and mentees into the Alumni Organization this quarter!
Capacity Building and Fundraising:
Dartmouth DREAM’s Local Programs collaborated to host a very successful ‘Experience Auction,’ selling things like boomerang lessons and an hour of ice-skating with Dartmouth Hockey’s starting goalie! All together they raised over $700 dollars! DREAM is thrilled to share the start-up of a new DREAM program at UVM, paired with the Salmon Run Apartments in Burlington. The new mentors and mentees held their first DREAM Friday this quarter. DREAM was honored to receive a $5,000 unrestricted grant from Merchant’s Bank to support the Vermont DREAM Programs.
Camp:
This May three productive work days up in Fletcher, VT with the help of many volunteers from IBM helped prep Camp DREAM for summer!
Alumni Involvement:
Office: 30 Community Drive, South Burlington, VT | Mail: P.O. Box 361, Winooski, VT 05404 │ (802) 338-8979 | info@dreamprogram.org
The DREAM Alumni Organization is currently electing new leadership. Nominations flooded in for the two positions to be filled: Alumni Council President and Constitution Keeper. A major focus with alumni will be raising money to build facilities at Camp DREAM, improving the experience for our youth.
Office:
The DREAM office was a very busy place this quarter as hiring began for summer interns, as well as full time AmeriCorps members! This quarter, DREAM staff said good bye to Development Director Sandy Mervak. Sandy has left DREAM to go back to graduate school. The DREAM staff and board members gathered at Camp DREAM in May for a successful third annual retreat. New staff members all the way from Philadelphia and Boston were able to attend, making the retreat a very special one. The Elm St. office in Winooski got some TLC from Burlington DREAM staff this May with a major cleaning and sprucing up to get organized for summer!
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/local-program-reports.
DREAM big, Kate Cahalane Program Empowerment Director VYT AmeriCorps VISTA kcahalane@dreamprogram.org 802.338.8936