Recap of the Week

This week has been fairly busy as a lot of our students are starting school or are going to start school in the coming week. We also are gearing up for volunteer and student orientations and the volunteer recruitment campaign keeps chugging along. One of the coolest ways of spreading awareness about the volunteer recruitment campaign is a video made by our film club and directed by their leader, Rebecca Parrish. Please show this video to everyone you know because it is a great testimony to the power of tutoring and mentoring.

On Monday, Cabrini Connections had a field trip to the CSI exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. One of the perks of our organization is that we get to go on field trips for free to the various museums in Chicago. The CSI exhibit was very well done - the kids had to observe a crime scene and the learn about the various ways crime scene investigators use the clues to solve a crime, such as DNA analysis, blood splatter patterns and autoposy findings. I think the kids really enjoyed the exhibit and as an added bonus, perhaps would consider crime scene investigation as a possible career path.

Wednesday, I had my first seminar for my fellowship. It was really great hearing about everyone else's jobs and how our experiences are very similar, yet we all are doing very different things. By far the most interesting part of the seminar was a young man who was a fellow last year who works for Chicago Public Schools' Alumni Relations. Various college alumni associations in Chicago have adopted different high schools to do tutoring, mentoring, job shadowing and college preparation. The three schools in my fellowship, Princeton, Northwestern and UChicago all have adopted a high school or elementary school. I think it's such a great idea to have these prestigious universities giving back to the schools in Chicago that are of great need.

Also on Wednesday, we had our first volunteer orientation for prospective volunteers. I was so happy to see that all of the prospective volunteers were really enthusiastic about tutoring and mentoring at Cabrini Connections and that all of them had so much to offer to our kids.