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The Village Mentoring Organization
Windsor/Union Square –DREAM Quarterly Report June – August 2015 Greetings from DREAM! The Windsor/Union Square DREAM program has finished up another wonderful winter of activities. Here is a summary of all the Windsor/Union Square DREAM happenings from the last quarter.
Highlights from the quarter include:
This month DREAM welcomed summer AmeriCorps member Mona Abdelghani and Tucker Foundation Fellow Gautam Babu. Both lead summer programming in all three of the communities paired with Dartmouth College. DREAM held a summer orientation for all the summer community members. Orientation was held at Camp DREAM! Some of the trainings included: Safe Spaces, Behavioral Management and Building Relationships, Conversation on Poverty, and Building Relationships with Families. In June, mentors: Gautam Babu, Chris D’Angelo,Thienan Dang, Patricia Bai, Kevin Ryu, and Sam Gardner, facilitated and lead a trip for teens from all three Dartmouth programs to Philadelphia. While in Philadelphia teens visited the Liberty Bell, Temple University, Dorney Amusement Park, Franklin Institute, Magic Gardens, and many more places! DREAM was fortunate to receive funds from the Tucker Foundation at Dartmouth College and from Cabot Creamery Cooperative. College Road Trip was a success! Teens got the opportunity to visit colleges in Boston and D.C., and of course do some amazingly fun activities! Youth aged 8-18 were invited to enjoy a session at Camp DREAM in Fletcher, VT! DREAM’s annual Time of Wonder Sailing trip happened this month! Youth went sailing off the coast of Maine for a week. This month DREAM welcomed three new AmeriCorps VISTA members to the team! Julia Dillavou, Kelsea Moulton, and Tiffany Trowbridge-Bernard will serve as Program Empowerment Directors with our other 10 programs throughout Vermont. AmeriCorps VISTA Kylie Edwards will be staying for a second year to work with the Dartmouth College programs!
Fridays:
Summer community members Gautam Babu and Mona Abdelghani baked cupcakes with the youth in the Union Square Community Room! Mentors and mentees played games on the green, went to a petting zoo, and participated in a scavenger hunt around campus! For summer culminating, mentors brought all the mentees to Storr’s Pond and had a BBQ.
Office: 30 Community Drive, South Burlington, VT | Mail: P.O. Box 361, Winooski, VT 05404 │ (802) 338-8979 | info@dreamprogram.org
Youth went to the ocean at the end of the summer with Gautam Babu. For some of the youth, it was the first time they have seen the ocean and their first experience swimming in the freezing water! The mentors have been doing water activities outside, playing soccer, and getting to know the new summer mentors! Mentors brought the mentees to the Windsor Fair for Friday programming! Summer community interns have brought youth from Windsor swimming, hiking, played four-square, indoor craft activities, and played many water games! Both community interns, Mona Abdelghani and Gautam Babu, have done an amazing job at getting the youth in Windsor out of their houses and engaged in healthy activities. Summer community interns worked on recruiting at Windsor Village, more exposure to DREAM this summer has helped us make more contact with the families! Three new youth have joined thanks to efforts from summer community members!
Special Events for Children and Mentors:
For the fourth year in a row, DREAM staff took several teens to Maine for a week of living on a sailboat and learning the ropes (pun intended) of sailing in the ocean. Captain John Reid once again manned the helm, and we are grateful for his generosity in spearheading these trips and providing the boat and instruction, but most of all opening his heart to DREAMers and exhibiting an extreme degree of patience! Some of the highlights of the trips were giving teens the opportunity to drive and steer the boat, trying new foods prepared in unique ways in the ship’s small galley, using a bathroom on a boat (a very interesting experience to be sure), playing BananaGrams (word game), learning sailing terminology, swimming, exploring and visiting barrier islands, and living five days away from cell phones and other technologies, which is so important for these formative experiences to have their greatest impact. Most of all, each sailing session provides the opportunity for teens to learn and challenge themselves in many ways they never thought possible! This quarter eight Vermont teens joined DREAM teens from Boston and Vermont on a College Road Trip adventure to Washington, DC. In addition to college tours, the group also went to the movies, an aquarium, sightseeing, and so much more. A highlight of the trip was a visit to Southern Vermont College, where they were allowed to spend the night in the dorms to better experience college life!
Capacity Building and Fundraising:
This summer our development team raised $53,448 through our summer appeal aimed at supporting our summer programs. This amount exceeded our $50,000 goal and greatly exceeded the amount we’ve raised in the past!
Camp:
This summer we had 72 campers over the course of 5 weeks, hailing from all corners of Vermont as well as 6 kids and 4 adults who made the trek all the way from Boston! For 30 of the total campers, it was their first time at Camp DREAM, and we hope they come back next year! Highlights of the activities we did: hiking, swimming, canoeing, gardening, volunteering at a local farm, nutrition education, environmental education activities, discussions about their futures, cooking, eating delicious meals, sleeping en plein air, singing, games, performing in a talent show, and so much more!!! We are also thankful for the 11 teens who served as Counselors-in-Training this summer! This program gives DREAM teens an opportunity to spend an extra week at camp with elevated responsibilities. CITs lead activities and help with the younger campers, and they earn some money in the process! Many thanks to our volunteers and Guest Rock Stars! These people took a day or a week off from their busy lives to share their skills and stories at Camp DREAM. They are Paul Espina, Oliver Smith, Erin Knight, and Sophie Halpin.
Office:
This quarter we welcomed three new AmeriCorps members to our Vermont program team. Kelsea Moulton, Julia Dillavou, and Tiffany Trowbridge-Bernard join the team as Program Empowerment Directors (PEDs). All three members come to DREAM with a wealth of experience and DREAM is thrilled to have them on board!
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