Close Encounters of the Community Kind

Wow...its been awhile since I've done this. I figured since not much happened last week, you know with Thanksgiving and all, that I might as well just wait until this week to write this.

So lets see whats been going on.....

After that conference I went to I've still been mulling ideas over in my head.  I've gotten so far as to develop one, so now all I have to do is post it on facebook to advertise it.

I met with someone from the from Girl Scouts, not so much to discuss work as to just get together for coffee.  We met at the Community Partners Fair at the local middle schools.  We did however get on the subject of work, and we are thinking about collaborating this summer to either do a Day Camp together or maybe doing one week of Summer Clubs together.  We still have a lot of details to work out on that.  We both thought it would be a good idea to talk about community collaboration and working together to create a functioning community that everyone participates it. Its also a good recruiting tool for both organizations.

One thing I forgot to mention two weeks ago, is that the wheels have started turning on a plan to get a school garden started at one of the elementary schools we work with a lot here.  I went to the initial meeting about it, and there are still many many details that need to be worked out, but I think we will get there before next spring.  I don't have a green thumb, but I like teaching, and failure is part of teaching I think. One of the things 4-H works hard to instill in people is the idea of learn by doing.  This can include all sorts of things, gardening is one of them.

I finally made it back to the JDC this week.  I haven't been going because I had other things going on.  We made flash cards to donate to a school.  We haven't decided which one yet, and I still have to sort them out and make sure all the ones that go together are together. We at least had fun working on them. And I think the boys there learned a little something too....shapes mostly....

While I was going through things in the closet, I found quite a few Halloween Decorations and party goods.  I talked it over with my supervisor and we decided to donate it to the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northcentral Wisconsin for their Bowl for Kids' Sake, since their theme in February is "The Big Scare."  They were happy we donated them, and I'm excited for it because this will be the first time I am going, since I'm taking my little to it. :)

Its been a pretty quiet week otherwise.  I spent some time out of the office because my sisters have new babies.  So I have been pretty excited about that.

Next week should pick up some more, I've got a lot of busy work to do keeping up with and advertising the new 4-H social media sites.

Until Then!

Journey to the Center of the State

Phew! It has been quite the week. I'm glad its just about over.  This post is one day late, but I assure you, I have good reason!

This week I was at the State 4-H Youth Development Conference at the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells.  It was amazing! I had so many great opportunities to meet people and network, as well as learn about a variety of new things and strategies that I hope to put into action as soon as possible!

It started out with a pep talk from Jeb Enck who had alot of good things to say about the power of positivity.  I think I might even try one of his strategies.

The conference was broken up into group sessions and breakout sessions.  My first break out session was called "4-H Club Presentations that Pop!"  This was all about different things we could do for making presentations to clubs about specific subjects, whether its community service, parliamentary procedure, working together, or just a general overview of 4-H.  There was alot of good information in this session.  Many helpful tips and guidelines that could easily be altered to fit the needs of the specific group.  One part of this session was a hands on planning part of our own.  I worked together with my group to make a presentation about 4-H being like a puzzle, all the different teams and projects have to work together to complete the puzzle and that without each piece, 4-H wouldn't be a whole picture.  This idea came out of a bigger picture idea that I had about 4-H being just one piece of the puzzle of the community and that it needs to partner with other members of the community to make a functioning community. I hope to be able to use this sometime in the future!

The second breakout session I went to was about a program being held in Green County called Passport to Reality.  This is an activity for schools to participate it.  Community partners get together and set up stations.  The students would each follow their own path through the stations, following a scenario that was given to them.  So one student might start out at a friends house, then move to the party room, then move to the police station, then court, then a counselor and so on.  I think this would be really good for Marathon County Schools to have.  I talked to the family living agent, and she said there was a grant being written to do something similar, except it would be financial based.  Hopefully we can merge the two, or something!

The next day started out with group sessions.  These consisted of small focus groups about the foundational topics that the State 4-H office is putting together and would eventually like all 4-H curriculum to meet the standards of these parameters.  Although I didn't understand most of what was going on, I still got some interesting insights into how the mind of Extension works. It was good!

My third breakout session was on Strengthening Youth Adult Partnerships in organizing, planning, participation, and evaluation.  This was good because they gave us quite a few good and free resources on how to encourage youth-adult resources. I also had a discussion with the new 4-H agent in Iron county and he gave me some ideas for what to do for this coming summer for camp! Its quite exciting!

For dinner afterward it was regions night out.  So all the VISTAs got together for cheese and wine, then went out to dinner.  It was quite a bit of fun, I really enjoyed it.

The next morning we had Table Talks (slightly different from Martin Luther's Table Talks) about different topics.  The two rotations I went to were Engaging with the Latino Community and National 4-H Resources and Webinars.  Both were very helpful.  These were probably the most helpful of all the things I went to this past week.  I now have some ideas to help me get programming into the Latino community, and have some people I can contact if I need help with something.  As well as having a great resource database in case I need some 4-H project lessons!

My final breakout session was about Native American tribes in Wisconsin.  This was alot of fun because we even learned a very basic powwow dance. My calves hurt quite a bit afterward, but it was well worth it!

One of the best things about this week was making a connection with the VISTA from Portage county.  She and I (along with out agents) shared a room and had the opportunity to get to know each other pretty well.  I hope to work together with her on projects in the future.

All in all, this was a wonderful, educational, and exhausting week.  I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go.  Now I have to write down all my ideas for things I want to work on in the future.

Then its back to work!

Until then!

Invasion of the Volunteer Snatchers

I think I've decided to title these posts by making parodies of sci-fi movie titles. We'll see how long I can keep that up.

So this week has been pretty interesting.  Not my most successful week, I'll admit, but it also hasn't been terrible.

Monday was spent cleaning up the mess I had made last week.  So I definitely got my work out.  Just need to keep that up.  I might go for a walk once I finish writing this.  Hope I have my iPod with me.

Monday night I went to the group home to be with them while they did more Fly Tying with the volunteers from Trout Unlimited.  They had a new boy come in to stay with them, and he at first didn't seem too interested when he heard that 4-H was coming in. I had had him at the JDC, and he once told me that 4-H was something he didn't need in his life.  He has survived just fine without it. He perked up once he heard that we were doing fly tying.  Fishing is something he really enjoys and is interested in.  On the downside, the county has decided to close the doors of the group home on December 1st.  The funding just wasn't there to keep it going.  They didn't have enough boys to fill the rooms and make it worth while.  I don't know where the boys will be sent, but I wish them luck and success on the road to recovery.  They really aren't a bad bunch of kids, just misguided. I think if they put their minds to it, they could be quite successful in life.  One guy wants to be a mechanic for Mercedes.  I applaud his goals.  I hope me meets them.

Other things that have happened this week include two of my programs getting put on hold. The Spanish Reading program will have to wait until next semester because we only had two students who had the time in their schedules.  So hopefully next semester will work out better.  I was also thinking of talking to the folks at the other area high school to see if they might have more time.  But that might just get complicated with with three different schools and three different scheduling systems.  All I can do is wait. 

The afterschool program might end up having to wait too.  Of the three people who volunteered, I've only heard back from one of them, and that was to say that she wouldn't be able to do it. This is a particularly bad time for college students since it is so close to finals.  The next session starts in February.  I hope I have some people by then. I would really like for this program to work out.  I've put alot of work into it.

As far as the Financial Wellness Conference is going, I think I've found someone to lead my session.  She is a 4-H leader who has been around as long as I can remember.  She is very talented and enjoys doing things for 4-H.  I'm hoping this works out too.  If it doesn't, I'm not going to have been very successful for the first quarter of my VISTA term.

I know that soon things will start looking up for me.  I have lots of ideas.  I just need to find successful ways of implementing them. 

Next week I'm going to a conference all about 4-H and Youth Development.  I'm sure I'll get some great information and tips there.

Until Then!

The Week the Work Stood Still....

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Well this week has been full of fun and exciting things! I feel like I've been on a treasure hunt.

It started on Monday when I cleared out the closet where we keep all our craft supplies and whatever else we might need in any and every eventuality. I put it all into one of the conference rooms which I had booked for the entire week (except for a meeting that was already there on Tuesday night). I filled up four tables with boxes upon boxes of stuff and started going through some of it.

Why am I doing that, you might ask? I'm kind of doing an inventory. I'm making lists of what all we have so that our summer interns can plan activities around what we already have or can plan ahead for things that we know we will need. I'm also getting rid of really old things that are no good anymore, like paint thats dried up and fabric with mouse holes in it. Yes, thats right, our closet had a mouse it in at some point and it had gotten into some stuff.

Tuesday was much of the same. I kept it all in one corner of the room so that I wasn't overwhelming the room because there was still going to be a meeting there that night. On Wednesday I was finally able to let it explode all over the room. I took over at least six more tables with stuff just trying to count and keep track of what all we had. Hopefully I will have it all cleaned up and put away by the end of the day tomorrow. I was going to stay after work and finish it, but then I scheduled an event with my Little, so now I have a solid deadline. I guess I could let it sit until Monday, but we have staff meeting in that room first thing. So I can let some of it sit there, but we really do need the tables cleared off. At least the ones in the front of the room.

This hasn't been the only thing I've been doing, though. I had the idea of doing something like a Hands-On day for community members. As part of Martin Luther King Day of Service, VISTA wanted to have a statewide event where all the VISTAs in the state do something for this day. So I thought it would be good to have a day where people could come and do sessions on budgeting, financial literacy, meal planning on a budget, re-purposing clothes, patching and hemming, as well as anything else I could think of and find volunteers for. Well it seems I wasn't the only one who had this idea. On the same weekend I was looking at for this event, one of the community partners that Extension works with is having a Financial Wellness Conference where they are having some of the exact same programs I was thinking of having at mine. So when I talked to the Family Living agent about it, she said I could probably hold a session of my own and do the sewing or other craft piece of it. Now my task is to find a volunteer willing to teach adults and older youth. Ideally I would like it to be about sewing, but I'm flexible. The title of my session is “Back to Basics.” I guess I'm really looking for anyone willing to teach anything that falls under that category. I've only got until January to find people for this. I also need people willing to man a table at the “fair” portion of this event. One idea was to have people just sitting there sewing a hem or a button on, and then people can stop by and quickly learn the basics of fixing clothes. This may be more work that I had originally anticipated, and I'm only trying to do one session instead of organizing an entire program!

Speaking of programming, my after school program is coming along very nicely. I received emails from three students at the local UW expressing interest in teaching. I responded and am waiting to hear back from them about when they would be available for a training or if they are even still interested.

I'm excited for upcoming JDC visits because in my digging through tubs of supplies, I've gotten lots of ideas for community service projects that they can do while I'm there. These include making basic math flash cards, painting wooden snakes to donate to a food pantry as toys for young kids, painting wooden Christmas ornaments to donate to food pantries. As Christmas approaches I'm thinking about donating stuff for families who may not have a whole lot. I'm supposed to be living in poverty. Even though I'm living with my parents, I am living in poverty. For the last few years, we haven't had much for Christmas, so I know that around the holidays every little bit is appreciated. While I am still more fortunate than some, I can still appreciate a generous gesture from someone I've never met.

On a similar note, the YAC Trick-or-Treating event was on Wednesday. I was dressed as a very fashionable young lady from the 80s. I had a grey cut, off the shoulder sweatshirt with a dragon on the front, bright blue gym shorts, purple tights, orange socks, and light green high-tops. I was pretty snazzy. We only had two youth show up, but we were also competing with trick-or-treating with friends, work, sports, and other Wednesday night events. In two hours, those two kids managed to cover three neighborhoods and collect 115 lbs of food to be donated to the Community Center of Hope. I've very proud of them!

Next week I'm back at my desk doing more planning and organizing for different events. I'm sure I'll survive just fine.

Until then!