Global Youth Service Day Project-3/18/2011

Monday, March 21, 2011

College Mentors lead a team of high school students in planning

water related service projects that will become part of Global

Youth Service Day (April 2011)

These last two weeks at Saint Joan Antida have been hectic. I was ill last week and unfortunately could not meet with my girls. However, they were able to come together and create a display poster board to show faculty the importance of a rain garden. This is paramount to our project for we have yet to get permission from the high school to install the garden, so I am proud that they accomplished this. Having said that, this week when I met with them to actually give the presentation, the poster board was lost or stolen from the library where it was stored!  Like any good story, we came together in a flash, printed off some stored facts and information about our project and were able to pull together a proposal. The girls were fantastic and really gave some great ideas. However, there are concerns about maintenance, especially during the summer when the school is closed.  So, before we can go to the Sisters, the group needs to brainstorm on who will take care of this during the break.

     We also finished our budget worksheet and determined to shoot for the stars and see what we can afford. We came up with a list of all the native plants we want to implement, how much compost we need, as well as the mulch and soil.  Again, we need to make sure we are able to use the lot that we requested and will hopefully know within two weeks!  I emailed the peer facilitator to give a heads up and have the girls thinking of not only maintenance concerns but alternatives as well for a backup plan. Overall, we are working well and I am hoping for the best!

-Mary Jane Kunath

Today was the start of the 3^rd week of our “Water Bottle Challenge”. We are a little less than half way to making our goal of collecting 100 plastic bottles. To gain more recognition for the Water Bottle Challenge we decided to dedicate ½ our time this week to creating as many posters as we could and the other ½ to hanging them up all over the school. Once this was done we finished up our resource list and also came up with all the prices. My team members want to build a rain barrel structure just by using the barrel and then creating the rest with recyclable bottles. On Global Youth Service Day the team plans to show their structure to a few 6^th grade classes and come up with an educational presentation. This presentation will describe what a rain barrel is, how it works, and why we use them.  Next week we are planning on contacting community partners of Lead to Succeed for a barrel donation.

-Kelly Crowley

After defining our project in the previous weeks, we finally were able to decide on the shampoo, conditioner, and soap to create from scratch. With many of the girls wanting something that would smell good, we chose many of the organic soap and shampoo products that contained coconut or honey. After getting together all the ingredients needed for each item (shampoo, conditioner, and soap), we took each amount and multiplied it to increase our sample size to be able to give away approximately 50 samples. Even though many of the girls have been sick or gone, our group is still getting things accomplished and once we receive the ingredients, we will be able to begin making our hygiene kit. Some things we still need to work on are, when the group will be able to get together and make these products and what exactly we want to type on our “educational note cards” when we hand out our kits.

-Lucas White

Things are moving along great with the group of girls that I have the pleasure of working with at St. Joan Antida. They have gotten together all the ingredients they need to make environmentally friendly hand soap and we gave it a try for the first time this past Thursday. We won't really see the finished product for a couple of weeks, but we are very excited to see how the soap turns out. The girls are also working on a poster board presentation that they are planning on sharing with the freshmen classes for Global Youth Service Day. They will be sharing with their fellow classmates what they are doing and why. It has been very cool seeing them pull all of the information together. The group has made so much progress and I am very excited to see how far they get in their project in the next few weeks.  

-April Heath

Custom Rain Barrel Business Project-3/18/2011

College Mentors lead a team of high school students in developing a custom design rain barrel business in which residents, businesses and community organizations can order their own attractively decorated rain barrel(s).

Today was one of the first days that the design team could put their sketches to “life”. By life, meaning that we scanned all logos onto the computer and saved them into a Lead to Succeed folder. After doing so the students got to use the paint option which is offered from the computer and colored in their logos. These logos are going to be put into our Customized Rain Barrel “Look Book”. This is where clients will be able to see numerous logos to pick from. We are planning on designing at least 15 rain barrels for the look book. The business plan team will help with the pricing and the marketing team will use the logo and barrel examples for their marketing ideas.  Next week half of the group will be focusing on new rain barrel ideas and the other half will be in the process of writing professional e-mails to possible donators. We are looking for a few “starter” barrels to experiment with paint and reality of our designs. This way we can have a real life example in our look book and will be able to estimate how much paint will be used. The team came up with the idea of auctioning these starter barrels off, for money to buy more barrels.

-Kelly Crowley

As the lead to succeed students continue to work on their projects, I would like to make sure you are well informed of what they are accomplishing. This week we worked on designing and making a catalog for our rain barrels. So far, the students have come up with the following:

The students were very interested and busy this session because we actually were able to use computers to surf the internet for ideas to draw and put on the rain barrels. We decided that each student would produce two designs for next week to put into the catalog. We, as mentors, really did not instruct this session, but instead we guided them on what ideas were good to draw for the catalog. Some ideas were themes of sports and going green. I cannot wait to see some of these drawings because I know they are going to be outstanding.

-Codee Sigler

Hi all! The students are still working extremely hard on their rain barrel project. The students are trying to get their "look Book" together to show potential customers what could be on their custom made rain barrels. Our students are also learning how to be professional in front of potential clients, what to say to them, what not to say and what is appropriate conversation and what is not. The students are learning quickly how to manage their time and to really start to get some work done when they come to our sessions. Our business plans are starting to develop quickly and are looking great. In no time these rain barrels are going to be ready to go!

-Sarah Hanson

Youth Volunteerism Campaign- 3/18/2011

College Mentors lead a team of high school students in learning the importance
of youth volunteerism then developing creative and innovative ways to spread
 the word to their peers

This week with the Youth Volunteerism Campaign was very productive. We sat down with a smaller group of students and started working on the PowerPoint presentation to accompany the campaign. The previously high energy students were able to cycle this energy into making this PowerPoint, and it was very successful. We laid out the basic structure of the presentation and started to fill it with content. Through some basic research, the students learned more about volunteering. Some of these things included basic statistics about volunteering and its benefits, what it takes to be a volunteer, how they can help, and many other positive things. Through the building of the PowerPoint, they also built upon their knowledge of structuring a presentation, which they will be giving to peers and community members. We then discussed how to build off this PowerPoint and information in coming weeks with the creation of supplemental media.

-Luke Chambers

Now that we are in the midst of the crafting of the project, we have come up with some good ideas to get the presentation out to the community. The whole project work will consist of a PowerPoint, three fold fliers and a video/DVD that can all be distributed efficiently.

Last meeting, Luke and a couple of students put together a PowerPoint to be the main theme of the whole presentation.  I was absent from this meeting as the session had to be earlier but from what I heard the students were very productive.  Some other project ideas were to make a three-fold flier that could be distributed among schools and to the public. This flier would be based off the PowerPoint and would basically be a summary with more color and pizazz to get the students’ peers attention. Finally, we want them to put together a video that would again, be based off of the PowerPoint.  The slides of the PowerPoint would be considered chapters or lessons on the DVD.  The video and flier will be great ways for the students to put their personality into the project and make it more interesting to their peers.

-Chelsee Bates

While it has been another two weeks since I have talked to you last, the Boys and Girls Club students are making drastic advances on their project for Lead to Succeed. In our last gathering together, we accomplished the settings for each group of the project. By putting our brains together, we were able to divide the project into a group that would work on the PowerPoint, a group that would help with the video, and the final group which would be dealing with pictures and promotional materials. With that being said, one of my fellow mentors and the students were able to get the PowerPoint outline complete and give us a great base to continue our everlasting improvement of the presentation. Things to look forward to in the future will be our homemade video about volunteering and the visual aids that will be taken to promote these students work with volunteering.

-Lucas White

Youth Volunteerism Campaign 3/4/11

Saturday, March 5, 2011

College Mentors lead a team of high school students in learning the importance
of youth volunteerism then developing creative and innovative ways to spread
 the word to their peers.

After getting to know some of the students and seeing how they interact, I think this will be a great opportunity for them to channel their energy into this project.  In one of our group meetings, La’Ketta Caldwell and Shannon Roundtree had the great idea of splitting the students into groups and having them think of a commercial about volunteering that would appeal to other youth. The commercials the groups came up with were very diverse and so creative. I really think it helped them get a grasp on why volunteering is so important.

 Bonnie Andrews, from the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee, was able to come in and talk to the group to point out some of her expectations and open their eyes to volunteerism.  It was nice to have her come in because she was able to talk about the Nonprofit Center and what she does there.  This benefitted the students because I think it helped them understand who they were doing the project for.  

At the end of our last meeting, the kids were able to actually partake in the activity of volunteering.  We were able to go upstairs and read to the young children they call PALS.  I could tell the students were eager to help the children.  Now that they all have an understanding of what volunteering is and why it is important, we are going to start putting all the great advice into a presentation.

-Chelsee Bates

Hi! My name is Luke Chambers, a new Lead to Succeed college mentor that will be assisting in the Youth Volunteerism Campaign and the Financial Literacy Project. This week was my first week at the Boys and Girls club for the Youth Volunteerism Campaign. For the first half hour of the session, Bonnie Andrews from the Volunteer Center spoke about volunteering and its many aspects. The students were interactive, brainstorming, and realizing the importance of volunteering. Having Bonnie come in and speak was very helpful and the students learned a valuable amount of information. We followed up with an ice breaker in which the student had fun with. Following that, we separated the students up into small groups to read Dr. Seuss books to younger kids at the Boys and Girls Club. The students were active, engaging, and friendly to the younger kids. This group is filled with energy, and when they focus that energy, I feel the group will be very successful in the promotion of Volunteerism.

-Luke Chambers

Since I last talked to you, many new things have happened at the Mary Ryan division of the Boys and Girls Club. Taking what we have already talked about volunteering, the group made some major decisions about what their project would be. Along with the teen’s ideas, mentors met with Bonnie Andrews, our community leader from the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee, to see exactly what was needed for her agency since the Nonprofit Center is supporting the Lead to Succeed program. After meeting with Bonnie, I gained many helpful hints and a better grasp of exactly what the project is and what is needed to complete it. Some of the things mentioned about our volunteer project were creating a power point presentation that can be given to other local high schools. This is the main purpose of the project and with the help of the mentors and other adults; Lead to Succeed envisions a very knowledgeable presentation that can either be presented with the whole group if feasible or without, if there are time conflicts.

Besides the power point, other media arose to try and make this project more compatible to a larger audience. With the group of teens and mentors, the project could also include a video of the students volunteering or just interviews of the students. Along with the video, some other suggestions were to try and make this volunteer project a jump start to a career. By continuing to remind the students that volunteering opens possibilities to references, resume building, or just knowing more people to network with makes this project a huge statement in many of the teen’s lives.

After the mentors met with Bonnie, Mrs. Andrews was able to lead a 30-45 minute presentation about volunteering and nonprofit organizations to the students. It was great to see the students engage in some of the questions she had for them and also just to see exactly what they think about volunteering and what possibilities are out there. In fact, many students were unaware of what a Nonprofit is, and what purpose they have in volunteering.

 After a quick ice breaker of trying to “untangle” the group, we were able to participate in our first volunteering event as a group. As a group, we read Dr. Seuss books (his birthday) to a bunch of youth that also attend the Boys and Girls Club. After taking a step back, I noticed that it was the exact same as the teens looking up to me, many of the youth began high fiving and becoming attached to their “mentors,” the high school teens. After reading to the class the Dr. Seuss books, it was another night of mentoring done at the Boys and Girls Club and I could definitely see the impact we are already having on other people’s lives.

-Lucas White

Financial Literacy Project 3/4/11

College Mentors lead a team of high school students in developing/presenting several financial literacy workshops at area schools

The past two weeks have been extremely productive for the Financial Literacy students at SUPAR. We have narrowed in on our project parameters, which include classroom presentations, an interactive worksheet, and a Facebook page containing information on the program as well as several links to various interactive programs designed by our sponsor, Wells Fargo, to teach the basics of financial literacy. Today we spent the majority of our classroom time discussing the importance of budgeting money. The kids were excited to utilize a program called "Savings Quest"(created by Wells Fargo) which interactively taught them about variable, fixed, and discretionary expenses. Overall, we are continuing to make progress and the students are showing more and more investment in the project, which is fantastic!

-Rachel Schwarz

Since we started really diving into the project guide, the students have come up with some great ideas of their own.  They have really taken headway into creating a Facebook page for the Financial Literacy project.  Since the network has become so popular they figured it would be a great way to connect with their peers.  The page will consist of the mission statement they created, links to great financial literacy websites and activities, and we also hope to include a picture of the whole group.  There are a few other things we would like to add, but they are still in the creation phase.  The students also came up with goals for how many people to present to.  The easiest way to start is to go do the presentation to their own classmates that attend SUPAR, then, they would like to present to the school upstairs; Carmen.  Those two schools alone will help them reach out to at least 100 students.  Another part of their goal is to find ten teachers who are willing to let the students come in to present. With the help of Wells Fargo’s Hands on Banking website, I know the students will be able to tell/teach their peers the importance of financial literacy.

-Chelsee Bates

Well hello there! My name is Luke Chambers, a new Lead to Succeed college mentor that will be assisting in the Financial Literacy Project and Youth Volunteerism Campaign. The past few weeks I have gotten to know the students from SUPAR that are involved in the Financial Literacy Project. Each of the students I have found to be very different from each other and myself. I feel this exposure to differences is socially and educationally beneficial to the students and to me.

The Past few weeks we have discussed the formation of the project itself, how to incorporate it into the school and spread the word of financial literacy. Being a Senior at UWM studying Economics, I was able to share with them the basics and importance of financial literacy. We cleared up common misconceptions, taught basics to banking, budgeting, and investment, and other topics. The students have started their research and started to form their campaign structure. They have found some great sources, and seem to be getting more motivated over time. I am looking forward to getting to know the students more, sharing my knowledge, and helping them throughout the process as needed.

-Luke Chambers

Custom Rain Barrel Business Project 3/4/11

College Mentors lead a team of high school students in developing a custom design rain barrel business in which residents, businesses and community organizations can order their own attractively decorated rain barrel(s).

Greetings! Since my last entry we have only had one meeting at Neu-Life, however, the business team of “Make It Rain Barrels” has completed a rough draft of its mission statement, goals, and company description on AgPlan.com. We are now moving into the actual business design portion of the project which is a daunting task since none of us (including myself) have ever designed the layout for a business. I have been thinking about this task over the past couple of weeks, doubting my ability to adeptly lead the students and successfully complete our task, I needed help! Just days after having these thoughts/fears run through my head, Laura sent out an email saying that we were going to be getting help from three new mentors from UWM! (My prayers were answered! Ha-ha) The role of these new mentors is solely to design, polish, and initiate the business plan/design for “Make It Rain Barrels.” So, now we have the opportunity to become more efficient, productive, and capable of completing our task… It’s going to be an exciting next couple of weeks!

-Bryce McCourt

Our last meeting (February 17th) was, in my eyes... the most successful yet! After the students were split into 3 groups, deciding between the design team, marketing team and business team their motivation seemed to alter. I chose to be the leader of the design team and the students involved were more focused and had a lot more energy towards the project once split into specific focus points. Our team first started off with an ice breaker to break up the silence, but as soon as it ended the ideas starting flying!

We are planning to create a look book for our future clients which will be organized according to what designs and colors we offer. The team also came up with a fabulous idea to create a logo just for Lead to Succeed Rain Barrels. We researched different ways to paint and found out that the easiest may actually be spray paint with stencils. In our next session we are focusing on the planning behind our ideas, which includes focusing on where our paint will come from and what kind is the best to use. As well as focusing on our proposal to local paint stores to possibly get some accessories donated, such as plastic tarps, nurse masks, and sturdy card board for the outlines of the logo. The three groups are planning on presenting our progress in the next session, that way we can all be on the same page. My team is finally excited about their projects and I am so excited to see what they come up with!

-Kelly Crowley

This week with our students we brainstormed ideas as to what to put on our rain barrels. The students came up with a great idea to find pictures of many different things, such as animals, sports teams, etc. and make a catalog (look book) of all of these pictures, and allowing potential buyers to choose what they want on their custom rain barrels. The students are very excited to start the process of building the rain barrels. Progress is definitely being made and the students are really stepping up to the challenge.

-Sarah Hanson

As lead to succeed students continue to work on their projects, I would like to make sure that you are well informed of what they are accomplishing. This week we worked on a private/public activity and brainstorming. So far, this is what has been going on: Only one student showed up on Thursday, so we were limited on our brainstorming for ideas on the rain barrels, but we did not lose hope.  We came up with the idea to have themes of sports, animals, flowers, etc. A thought that came to mind that was very interesting was to come up with something called a "controlled random", which would be almost totally random, but have a sense of a controlling purpose of the design.
 

- Codee Sigler

Global Youth Service Day Project 3/4/11

College Mentors lead a team of high school students in planning

water related service projects that will become part of Global

Youth Service Day (April 2011)

Right off the bat, on the first day I realized that I was paired with a group of four girls that were very bright and dedicated to their schooling. Not only were they ready to get started, but their ideas of getting everyone involved impressed me very much.  

These girls are working on recycling awareness and are creating a Water Bottle Challenge for their entire school to take part in. Not only will the school have a chance to recycle, but they will also have the opportunity on Global Youth Service Day to paint and decorate the water bottles. These bottles are going to be made into a structure resembling a tree, which will be located in the school court yard. They have plans to make an educational plaque for the community members who pass by. This week they are proposing to the Dean of their school to have the O.K. for the challenge and the placement of the water bottle structure. This bright and talented team did a great job putting their heads together to get the entire school involved!

-Kelly Crowley

While it has been a while since I have talked to you, the St Joan Antida groups are making huge steps in defining their project. With the group I was designated to mentor throughout the semester, we finally started putting together our “final” project description. The group of ladies I am helping with came up with a great idea of promoting hygiene products and how it affects the water system as well as the human skin/hair. In other words, we are going to make shampoo, conditioner, and a bar of soap to form a hygiene kit that would help lessen the pollution into our water. After making our products we will then store the conditioner and shampoo in sample bottles that would come from recycled material or green products. When all the sample bottles are filled (approx. 50 of each) we will be handing them out to many of the volunteers that are working the week of the Youth Global Day.

While the main focus in our group is creating hair products that are organic to help the water system, the group also believed they would promote their products as well as giving them away as samples. Many of the girls wanted to make posters, create a facebook group, and give away other samples to some of their peers at school. By being able to define our product more clearly, it has made the group more focused and able to see the end result. Also, our project has its outline, now we are just waiting for all the ingredients we will need to create our “kit.” While I am not sure, how the products will turn out or who will want to be our guinea pig to try out the product, but I am sure the girls are very excited about their creation and are ready to start telling people about it.

-Lucas White

This past week, the class at the school had a career day field trip, so we did not meet at Saint Joan Antida, however, I did get their contact information and will make sure to use facebook as a means to communicate with each girl. Tomorrow, we will fill out our budget request form and figure out the supplies needed and their costs for our rain garden project. I have made contact with Dave from Groundwork Milwaukee and he has some great questions to propose for my girls. Things such as: How big of a rain garden are you thinking of? How big is the area that would be draining to it? Are you thinking of taking on a larger project that involves replacing existing soil with "engineered soil"? How long do we have to plan for it? How much time to you have to put into this project?

These are all things I do need to either go over again or bring up tomorrow when I meet with the group. We have a ton of work to do, but it will be worth it!

-Mary Jane Kunath

At The School for Urban Planning and Architecture (SUPAR), a group of students involved in Lead to Succeed have been learning all about how clean water leads to healthy lives. The students were given a task earlier in the year to plan out and follow through with a project to present and construct at Global Youth Service Day this April 15-17, 2011. These students came up with a great idea of presenting an outdoor classroom alongside the Kinnickinnic River. The team has divided into four groups consisting of: a mural group, a bench/sitting area group, a native plant group, and a podium/plaque group; in which Petra Duecker (Facilitator and Account Manager for the project), Claire Fieber of 16^th Street Community Center (another mentor for the project), and myself will give them guidance and help them to stay on track with the project.

Each group has the responsibility to research the costs of the materials, contact the group in charge of funding their project, and to create a reasonable timeline in order to accomplish their mission. Although the students have huge visions and expectations for this project, the hard part is for the students to put their great ideas onto a solid and realistic plan so they have time to finish everything on time. So far, everything has been going very well. I just met with Evan McDoniels from 16th Street Community Health Center, Petra Duecker, and Kristin Kurzka of the SIGMA Group to discuss the project and set future goals in order to help the students stay on track with this project. We discussed where the classroom will be located, what types of materials we can and cannot use, and how much time and money this will take in order to be completed. This project is definitely something the students will feel good about once finished knowing they did a part in helping their community.

-Abby Breitenfeldt