The DREAM Program, Riverside, Quarter 3, 2015-2016

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The Village Mentoring Organization

Riverside DREAM Quarterly Report April-June 2016 Greetings from DREAM! Riverside mentors enjoyed the spring semester together, taking full advantage of the warmer weather. At the end of April mentors and mentees said goodbye for the year. Mentees were excited to start Summer Programming in June!

Highlights from the Quarter Include:   

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Riverside collaborated with Elm Street and Salmon Run for their annual event Spring Thing. They tie-dyed, played soccer, had a huge game of tug-o-war, and let mentees pie their mentors!

Riverside had their culminating event at Skateland. The group had a blast skating and dancing the night away!

For the last Friday of the year around 100 mentors and mentees from all three UVM programs gathered at North Beach for an end of the year/senior celebration. Everyone had a blast playing yard games, tie-dying, getting their faces painted, and eating lots of yummy food!

Riverside DREAMers celebrated graduating mentors Madison Stearns and Taylor Kammerer.

DREAM held our summer camp week at Camp Abnaki in North Hero, VT. Over 90 youth from all over the state came for a week of fun including, water sports, indoor and outdoor games, arts and crafts, a visit from the Franklin Grand Isle Bookmobile, and so much more!

Summer AmeriCorps members and DREAM staff gathered at Half Moon State Park in Fair Haven, VT for a three day orientation to their summer positions.

Riverside DREAM welcomed summer AmeriCorps members Mikayla Stark, Morgan Beck, and Amos Wolven. The team kicked off summer programming at Riverside with an ice cream social.

Weekly Activities with Youth:   

Mentors hosted a spaghetti dinner in the community!

The group went to UVM to watch a movie and eat snacks.

Mikayla, Morgan, and Amos started off the summer with beach trips, games in the community, and arts and crafts activities.

Special Events for Children and Mentors: 

On Saturday, April 2nd, 25 teens between the ages of 13 to 14 from all over Vermont came together for a day of service, rock-climbing, and fun! 13 mentors as well as the DREAM staff and AmeriCorps members joined the teens for the day. The teens were so excited to connect with old friends and to make new ones! The day started at Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont where teens, mentors, staff and AmeriCorps members participated in service projects. After that, they journeyed to Green Mountain Rock Climbing Center in Quechee, Vermont, where many teens pushed themselves to

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

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try rock-climbing for the first time. Others had done it before, and continued to practice their skills.

DREAM is excited that one of our teens will be received a full scholarship to and will be attending the MedQuest Program this summer. The Medquest Health Careers Exploration Program is a rigorously structured program designed for students who would like to learn more about career opportunities available in the health care field. It is a coed, residential, four-day program held on the University of Vermont (UVM) campus.

Students will participate in interactive presentations and hands-on workshops. They will travel to hospitals and community health centers, take part in job shadowing experiences, explore and strengthen skills and resources for health career development, increase their comfort in health care and college environments, interact with health care professionals and students, and much more. UVM Health Professions students help staff the program. More info about Medquest: http://www.cvahec.org/programs/high-schoolstudent/med-quest/

Capacity Building and Fundraising:  

This Spring we raised an additional $125K for Camp construction from two major foundations. Construction on our bathhouse continues, and construction on a large lodge will begin this summer.

DREAM also launched our summer fundraising drive with a goal of $100,00 to support out summer programs, such as Camp DREAM, community activities and field trips, multi-day sailing trips in Maine, a college road trip, and more!

Mentor Training and Workshops: 

Mentors attended a Suicide Prevention Training with Charlotte McCorkel from the Howard Center. They learned prevention, intervention, and postvention techniques.

Camp: 

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This summer we are welcoming an NCCC crew to help with construction at Camp DREAM. NCCC, or National Civilian Community Corps, is a branch of AmeriCorps. The NCCC crews travel around the country working on projects for a few months at a time.

Our crew arrived in June and will work with us through August.

Over 140 DREAM youth, mentors, staff, volunteers, and summer AmeriCorps members spent the week of June 14-18 at Camp Abnaki in North Hero, Vermont! It was the largest DREAM event ever held, and campers enjoyed getting to know new friends, playing a variety of sports and games, and experiencing a camp experience like none they’d ever had before!

A group of 6 teens spent a week at Camp DREAM for “Teen Trail Crew”. They spent the week clearing out Camp DREAM’s apple orchard. The teens had a blast and were proud of everything they accomplished.

Office:

 This quarter, DREAM hired 15 Summer AmeriCorps volunteers through Vermont Youth

Development Core to run programming in our Vermont Communities.

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/mentoring/vermont/local-program-reports.

DREAM big, Kelsea Moulton Program Empowerment Director VYT AmeriCorps VISTA kelsea@dreamprogram.org 802.338.8979