June 18,
2008
Year End Dinner,
Flash Presentation
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Join A Club: Encourage your student to join clubs during the summer.
Art Club - Monday, 5:45-7:15 p.m.
Tech Club - Tuesday, 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Make Music - Thursday, 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
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Questions? Want to Volunteer?
Call
El Da' Sheon Nix to
schedule an interview.
Contact Information
By Phone: 312-492-9614 By Fax: 312-492-9795
By Email:
El Da' Sheon Nix, Administrative Coordinator
Eldasheon.nix@gmail.com
Nicole White, Assistant Program Coordinator;
Wednesday Staff
nicolewhite.cabrini@gmail.com
Keith Smith, eLearning & Technology Coordinator; Thursday Staff ksmithjr@gmail.com
Dan Bassill
(fund raising, events)
tutormentor2@earthlink.net
Volunteer
Coordinators:
Wednesday: Tami Wielgus, Ginny Whipple
Thursday: Roman Shuster, Robert Herrick
Art Club: Jackie Shay
Video Club: Rebecca Parrish
Tech Club:
Christopher Fosco and Kristen Owen
Writing Club:
Jen King and
Shannyn Nellett
Cabrini Connections' Year End Dinner - held Thursday,
June 12
Thank you everyone who helped make the dinner a success. More than 150
parents, volunteers, leaders and students attended. View the
flash presentation created by our student
interns from Korea.
The dinner celebrates the end of one year, and kicks off summer programs
and the beginning of the 2008-09 school year. While we have four
students graduating from high school this year, after five and six years
with Cabrini Connections, we also have more than twenty 7th and 8th
graders who will need our support for four or five more years --just to
finish high school!
We hope you'll help them as an alumni volunteer who stays
connected to us and them via the Cabrini Connections web site, or as a
member of the 2008-09 school year program.
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Year End Survey Results.
You can find the results from the year-end survey at
Students - http://www.cabriniconnections.net/pdfs/yestusurveyanalysis.pdf
Volunteers -
http://www.cabriniconnections.net/pdfs/yevolsurveyanalysis.pdf
Please take a look. There are a few obvious conclusions.
a) only 1/3 of the students and volunteers completed the survey so we have much work to do if we're to get 100% participation in on-line learning
b) the responses indicated a high level of satisfaction, but the volunteer surveys show we need to provide more support to volunteers.
We will be working on this over the summer and I encourage volunteers with a training, consulting and/or communications background to lend your talent to helping us as we constantly look to improve the support Cabrini Connections offers students and volunteers.
Summer College Seminars-
Encourage your student, even if he/she's only in 7th grade, to
participate in the Cabrini Connections Summer College Seminars .
Seminar 2 – The First Steps, Testing and Applying to College, will be
held tonight (June 11) at Cabrini Connections offices, 800 West Huron,
from 5:30pm – 6:30pm. Session number three will be in 2 weeks.
Summer Activities -
We will host a variety of activities to keep kids and volunteers
connected to Cabrini Connections and each other. Please make an effort
to participate as much as you can. Here's a PDF link:
http://www.cabriniconnections.net/pdfs/Summer%20Flyer%202008%20Clubs.pdf
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If you have contact with your student out of the tutoring session this summer, please document it using SVHATS. Our donors are looking for evidence of the continuing contact of mentors and students. SVHATS provides this information. Please help us by documenting your contacts.
The SVHATS address is:
http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/svhats/default.asp
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Great America Trip - July 26 -
Congratulations goes out to the 31 students who earned the opportunity
to be apart of the Great America Trip which is scheduled for Saturday
July 26, 2008 (with a rain date of Aug. 2, 2008). These students earned
this opportunity by attending the program at least 6 out of the 8
tutor/mentor sessions for the 3rd quarter. Congratulations!
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Fund Raising:
Please help us attract donors to support the 2008-09 program, as well as summer
activities like the Great America Trip
Visit
the donor page at
http://www.cabriniconnections.net/donate and encourage friends,
family, co-workers, etc. to add their support.
2008 Jimmy Biggs Memorial Cabrini Connections Golf Benefit, July 17 at
Highland Park Country Club.
We're recruiting sponsors, silent auction items and participants.
Kurt Kittner, former Illinois and Bears quarterback will be co-chair
this year. Learn more at
http://www.cabrinitmcgolf.org
If you have ideas about fund raising, contact Cassina Sanders, Marketing, Fundraising and Public Relations Coordinator, http://cassinazcabrini.blogspot.com/
President's Message:
Engaging talent from the workforce to support non profit sector organizations
I attended the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service last week and participated in a variety of workshops where business leaders were talking about how important it is for them to provide community engagement opportunities for employees. They also talked about how the talent of many employees could be used to help non profits build stronger organizations. I'm writing about this on the Tutor/Mentor Blog and I hope you'll read these articles and pass them on to leaders in your companies and organizations. The address is http://tutormentor.blogspot.com
This is not a new concept to Cabrini Connections. We've relied on the talent of many volunteers for the past 15 years to build this organization. If you look at the list of clubs and coordinators you can see that many volunteers do work that supports our tutors/mentors and teens. These are just some ways volunteers have been helping us.
What many of you may not know is that volunteers have built all of our web sites, and have helped us organize fund raising events. Cortland Madock and Gabe Rodriguez are co-chairs of the dinner. Steve Miller and Kurt Kittner are co-chairs of the golf benefit. Volunteers from 30 different organizations offered their time to do workshops at the Tutor/Mentor Conference. Volunteers in different states are doing high level technology projects to support our efforts.
Without other people sharing the vision, goals, and work of helping teens finish high school and move to jobs and careers, it would be impossible for me or the small paid staff we've had over the past 15 years to have provided the Cabrini Connections experience to more than 500 teens and 700 volunteers since 1993. It would be impossible for us to be helping more than 200 tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region and countless others around the country.
At the National Conference Congressman John Lewis was a speaker. One of his comments was "We all came to this country in different boats. We're all in the same ship today."
If we're to solve problems of high school drop out, youth violence, teen substance abuse and pregnancy and help Chicago area businesses have a well prepared and diverse workforce, we need to engage the talent of thousands of people, in many places, and for many years.
I thank you all for being part of the 2007-08 version of Cabrini Connections and I hope you'll all stay connected to us in one way or another for the next school year and for many years after that.
Dan Bassill
President, CEO
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60622
Phone: 312-492-9614
Fax: 312-492-9795
Please read the blogs .............
http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com