Franklin Square DREAM Quarterly Report July - September, 2017
Greetings from DREAM! Wonderful Summer DREAM activities were well underway in July and wrapped up in August. The Franklin Square Summer members and mentees were sad to see Summer end but, school resumed and the program was once again brimming with DREAMiness come the beginning of September. Here is a summary of happenings that occurred during these months.
Highlights from the quarter include: ● ● ●
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Summer DREAM members Morgan Beck and Austin Pine planned programming for Franklin Square. They were joined by Allie Campbell midway through the Summer. The DREAM Office celebrated the Summer members and staff who ran programming with a celebratory barbeque early August. After 2 years as a Program Empowerment Director (PED), Julia Dillavou, has finished her service with DREAM. She plans to remain involved with DREAM youth while she applies to graduate school. Across DREAM’s 3 regions, 14 full time AmeriCorps members began their service in the DREAMCorps National Americorps Program on August 28th, including 6 new PEDs in Vermont! DREAM welcomes Caroline Hart, Jackie Proctor, Olivia Chandler, Connor Duffy as new Co Chairs! They will join the leadership team with Meg Murray, who will be in her second semester as co chair. Franklin Square DREAM also welcomes Deborah Kosnar as its 2017-2018 Program Empowerment Director. The mentors have arrived back on campus! Mentors and mentees gathered for their first Friday on September 15th for a barbeque and expectations activity in the community.
Participants Mentees Total: 25 Weekly Programming: ● ● ●
Mentors Total: 18
DREAMers took many local field trips including to North Beach, Sam Mazza’s for berry picking, and the Spare Time Bowling Alley! Franklin Square DREAM spent time on Saint Michael's Campus for movie nights and snacks! They also engaged in several rounds of hide-and-seek in the student center! In the community, DREAMers participated in arts and crafts, bracelet-making was a favorite, and fundraised for field trips, which included selling the crafts they made!
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Youth spent an afternoon sailing on Lake Champlain courtesy of the Community Sailing Center in July! Franklin Square DREAM took trips to Al’s French Fries to celebrate the end of another great Summer of DREAM! DREAMers went apple picking at Chapin Orchards for their first Friday outside of the community this September.
Special Events for Children and Mentors: ● DREAM received a Summer Readers’ grant from CLiF (Children’s Literacy Foundation). Local author and illustrator, Jason Chin, gave a presentation about his books and his writing/illustrating process to 30 youth from our Burlington area programs. Capacity Building and Fundraising: ● Through our annual summer appeal we raised close to $50K. ● DREAM spent a lot of time this quarter investing time in laying the foundation for our new National AmeriCorps grant. ● We received a challenge grant of $10K to purchase a van for transportation. ● DREAM organized our first (of what we hope will be annual) fundraising event by participating in the Race to the Top of Vermont. Staff, AmeriCorps members, board members, and alumni all hiked/biked/or ran to the top of Mount Mansfield and raised over $7K! ● We welcomed a new program site, Applegate Housing Community in Bennington, VT this summer! Youth were able to participate in our summer programming and six have signed up to participate in school-year DREAM. Camp: ●
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This year we hosted 79 campers over the course of the Summer representing EVERY Vermont DREAM community!! About one fifth of the campers had never been to camp before! In late August we broke ground for the lodge! The lodge will give us capacity to host more youth for longer periods of time year-round. In addition to the lodge, a staff cabin also went up thanks to the help of our awesome summer AmeriCorps members!
Teen Accomplishments: ● Seven teens participated in a week long College Road Trip where they visited nine colleges all over Vermont and ended their trip with a weekend at Six Flags in New York. ● Summer members ran teen specific programming once a week including trips to Summervale, teen talks, and bowling trip.
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The Dartmouth programs and the Bennington and Poultney programs both went on High Adventures to California! o Twelve teens and nine mentors from Dartmouth spent ten days exploring San Francisco, zip-lining through Redwoods, and camping in Big Basin State Park. o Two teens from Bennington, two teens from Poultney, and five mentors spent a week exploring Los Angeles! Six teens served as Counselors-in-Training at Camp DREAM this summer, and another 6 teens served as Mentors-in-Training during community programming!
Alumni: ● Alumni are investing in a new alumni management system so to help alumni better stay in touch and provide more career-oriented resources to our DREAMers. Office: ● ●
We welcomed Mike Ewan to our team as our Chief Operations Officer! Through our new National AmeriCorps grant we brought on fourteen AmeriCorps members across our 3 regions.
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, Deb Kosnar Program Empowerment Director dkosnar@dreamprogram.org 802.338.8979