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The Village Mentoring Organization
Windsor/Union Square –DREAM Quarterly Report December – February 2016 Greetings from DREAM! The Windsor/Union Square DREAM program has finished up another wonderful semester of activities. Here is a summary of all the Windsor/Union Square DREAM happenings from the last quarter.
Highlights from the quarter include:
In December, families received gifts through Project Joy. Project Joy is a program which provides gifts to DREAM families. Project Joy is possible through DREAM’s partnership with Ben and Jerry’s! Mentors gathered to discuss big plans for term and long term goals for the program. Mentor, Gautam Babu, and PED, Kylie Edwards, went to watch Cicely play in her basketball tournament! This term the mentors welcomed two new kids to the program. In February, the mentors held a fundraiser at Margaritas Restaurant in Lebanon, NH to fundraise for High Adventure 2017!
Fridays:
Mentors and mentees did one-on-one activities. Mentees put on a talent show for the mentors. The mentors even got up to do a dance for the kids! Mentors invited a campus dance group, Sheba, to come and teach the kids a few hiphop dance moves. Sheba taught some of the kids a few dance moves from popular hiphop videos. The mentors brought the kids to Maple Lanes in Claremont, NH for an afternoon of bowling! Mentors flew kites with the kids on campus for one Friday!
Special Events for Children and Mentors:
DREAM hosted its annual Fall Teen Retreat. A group of DREAM teens went to the Boston Museum of Science for a day filled with fun, learning, and bonding. This January, DREAM teens from across Vermont convened at Camp DREAM on Martin Luther King Jr. day to do service, reconnect, enjoy some sledding, and share a meal. This quarter DREAM held two Winter Adventure Camps (WAC), one for teens and one for 8-12 year olds o WAC for 8-12 year olds took place at Camp DREAM. We had a total of 117 attendees, including 42 mentors, 12 staff and volunteers, and 63 youth. The group enjoyed activities such as broomball, sledding, magical winter hikes, and of course, plenty of hot chocolate!
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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We had a total of 48 attendees for Teen WAC, including 21 teens, 15 mentors, 10 staff, and 2 volunteers. A team of 6 DREAMers, made up of staff, teens, and alumni, participated in the annual Penguin Plunge to benefit the Special Olympics, jumping into the freezing Lake Champlain waters while the rest of the group cheered them on! The team raised a total of $900 for the Special Olympics and won a facebook photo contest! After the plunge, the group spent the afternoon ice skating and bonding at Cairns Arena.
Capacity Building and Fundraising:
We had a strong annual fundraising drive, raising $326K in individual support, far exceeding dollars raised in previous appeals!
Mentor Training and Workshops:
This quarter a small group of Vermont mentors, teen mentees, and staff made the trek to Boston to attend their annual DREAMstock, mentor conference for DREAM mentors. Our two teen mentee attendees hosted a Q&A panel for mentors, answering questions about their experiences and opinions on mentoring.
Camp:
We are about 4/5 of the way to completing our capital campaign for Camp DREAM and plan on breaking ground this summer, permits allowing, for a large multi-purpose lodge. We hope this building will be heated and have a large great room, a nurses station with a bathroom, a working office with internet and phone access, and more! Work on the bathhouse facilities continue. The frame is up and we are well on the way to completing this project. Once finished the bathhouse will have both composting toilets and shower facilities. The youth could not be more excited to have shower at Camp DREAM soon!
Alumni Involvement:
This quarter we have begun recruiting Alumni Liaisons from current mentors in our programs. These Liaisons will work closely with the Program Liaisons from the Alumni Council to help keep alumni updated on current program happenings.
Office:
DREAM has hired a Student Employee from Champlain College to be our Board Assistant. The Board Assistant will provide support and clerical assistance to our Board of Directors and CEO.
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, Kylie Edwards Program Empowerment Director, VYT AmeriCorps VISTA kylie@dreamprogram.org, 802.338.8936