Northeastern/ Orchard Gardens DREAM Monthly Snapshot November 2017 Program Happenings and Highlights ● Northeastern mentors and Orchard Garden’s mentees are planning their first High Adventure trip for fall 2018. General goals of this trip include providing programming that encourages the expansion of both mentor and mentee comfort zones, community service projects, access to new experiences and resources, and time for social and emotional bonding within the group. The mentors are discussing an outdoor education and adventure experience in New England as the framework of High Adventure. They are in the early planning processes focusing on fundraising, grant applications and choosing their destination and subsequent appropriate programming. ● Mentors are focusing on including fun and educational activities in their programming, as well as on how to spark teen mentee’s interest in DREAM. ● This month, Mentors started thinking about including educational activities into their programming by taking mentees to a museum one week and helping them dream up spooky contraptions at their Halloween festivities another. ● Mahogonoy Grimes passes over the Orchard Gardens/ Northeaster DREAM program to new Program Empowerment Director Chelsea Griffin. Participants Mentees
Mentors
Total: 23
Total: 24
Weekly Programming with Participants ● During October, Orchard Garden’s mentees had two one-on-one sessions with their mentors, held Halloween themed festivities, and visited the Harvard Museum. o One-on-one sessions are going well and the mentors greatly enjoy their time with mentees. Mentors would like to offer additional support with homework and school, as well as social and emotional issues that mentees face within their home and school communities. Mentors are unsure of the best practices to use to implement this but are starting to brainstorm as a group and with their PED. o The Harvard Museum visit held varying rates of satisfaction with the mentees. Some mentees found the museum interesting, fun, and inspirational while others found it boring and asked to do alternative activities such as getting food or going to a park. o Halloween festivities were a big hit with the mentees and mentors. Mentors offered a variety of games, crafts and snacks for mentees including facilitating them in building their own small catapult out of popsicle sticks and rubber bands. The majority of mentees and mentors came dressed in some sort of costume. Mentors offered costume-making supplies for those who did not have costumes.
Program Empowerment Director Perspective
Areas of Growth: ● Northeastern mentors are working well together and offer the mentees good support through their one-on-one interactions and group programming. ● The mentors are well organized, which translates to well thought out and well executed programming. ● Younger mentees are involved and show that they trust and admire their mentors. This is creating a space for social and emotional growth. ● Northeastern mentors are making progress with their High Adventure plans and are starting to think of goals for programming. This could translate to setting their mentees up to accomplish those goals through progressive programming in the coming months. Areas Needing Growth: ● Mentors are noticing the dissipation of teen mentee involvement and need to work with teens to re-interest and involve them in programming. Mentors have expressed that the teen mentees are more likely to attend one-on-one sessions than group sessions because they feel group programming is directed toward younger participants. The mentors need to think of solutions to address this issue. ● The mentors have strong organizational skills and good existing relationships with mentees and are ready to push themselves to think outside the box and take their programming to the next level.
Thank you for your ongoing support of DREAM. If you would like additional information please reach out to me via email or phone. DREAM big, Chelsea Griffin Program Empowerment Director cgriffin@dreamprogram.org 503-957-0769