Nicolecabrini

But how do you plan a conference?

2010-06-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

With one week left at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, I feel like I need to share some of the things that I have learned these past three years. Since planning a conference is fresh in my mind, my first entry will be on how to plan the Tutor/Mentor Conference.

You really should start to plan the Tutor/Mentor Conference almost as soon as the last one ends. Since there are two a year, you should start planning the November starting in May and the May one starting in November.

The first thing you need to do is to form your committee. Usually you will do your networking for your committee at the Conference. Talk to people who seem really enthusiastic about the conference and who seem to be good at networking. We have a conference e-mail list that you can build your committee around. Start having committee meetings about 5 months in advance of the conference. See if anyone has any leads to an affordable site for the conference. 5 months is usually the latest optimum time to book space. We've found that many universities will have special non-profit rates for rental space and are very accommodating for holding conferences. We usually try and have the conference at different sites in the city in order to attract different groups and organizations. Usually the conference will be host to 150-200 people and you will need one large room for keynotes and meals, and 4-5 breakout rooms for workshops.

Once you have your space and your committee, start putting together your schedule of speakers and panelists. Repeat workshops from past conferences, especially those that were well-reviewed are where you should start, but also start looking through the news and see what organizations and experts (such as university professors) are featured in news stories about poverty, violence, education, etc. The sky's the limit on what workshops and speakers to have as long as it has something to do with running a quality volunteer tutor/mentor organization. Panels are often a good idea so you can get a variety of perspectives on a subject. Definitely use your conference-planning committee to find potential speakers, or have them be speakers or panelists themselves.

After you have your speakers, you need to make sure your conference is well-attended. We try and make sure everybody in our Program Locator Database is invited as well as those who attended the two previous conferences. Also, use any media sources that you have to post information about the conference in the news. If anything, most newspapers have community calendars that you can post the conference information in. If anything, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Ning, and LinkedIn are great ways to spread the word about the conference.

As the conference draws near, you need to deal with the detailed stuff. Are all the speakers and panelists registered? Is everybody who is registered on the groundspring e-mail list? Are they entered into FileMaker pro for the attendance list? Do they have their bios in for the program? Are all of their technology needs taken care of? Is catering ordered? Is parking taken care of? Have you created the forms that need to be photocopied? Have you assigned the workshops to different rooms? Have you created room grids for both days? Workshop Evaluation forms? Conference evaluation forms? Have the folders been stuffed?

After all of this is accomplished, all you need to worry about is making sure all the necessary supplies are gathered (pens, tape, scissors, paper clips, etc.), in addition to the maps, easels, folders, and other stuff and taken over to the conference site.

Hopefully this guide will make everybody who plans the Tutor/Mentor Conference have an easier time. After you figure out how to time everything, it becomes one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of working at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

The End of the Year and Your Donations are Urgently Needed

2010-06-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

It’s been a great year at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. 80 kids and 100 plus volunteers have made the Cabrini Connections program an award-winning success. Both the November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference and the May Conference saw well over 100 people attend. It would be nice to say that the year is ending with a bang and if financial issues weren’t a part of the picture, we indeed are.

Unfortunately, just as we’re ending a stellar year with both programs, we’re seeing funding dry up to pay payroll, rent, insurance, electricity and much more. I will be leaving Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection in two weeks, and the fact that this is the current situation deeply saddens me. Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection has been the best thing to happen to me and I am so deeply grateful to have worked here. Please help continue this award-winning program and send a check payable to “Cabrini Connections” to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, 800 W. Huron, First Floor, Chicago, IL 60614 or you can donate on PayPal: http://www.cabriniconnections.net/donate-online1

Great Conference - What People have to Say

2010-06-01T09:26:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a pleasant and relaxing Memorial Day Weekend. I just want to thank everybody who came to the conference last week. It truly was a great conference and I am so part to have been a part of the Tutor/Mentor Conference these past three years. It's comments like these that have made it so worthwhile:

- All of the speakers were excellent

-Great! Looking forward to attending next one. In the meantime, plan to incorporate knowledge gain through out organization.

-Keep up the good work in networking and connecting people!

-The keynotes were valuable.

- Great job!

-I think this conference is an excellent tool for networking. I'm really happy I was able to be a part of it. I liked the variety of topics, etc. Great time!

-Excellent Opportunity! I enjoyed everything and I am so happy to have been a part! Very professional and organized!

-This was my first time at the conference and I truly enjoyed all of it! I have so much information and ideas that I will be taking back and trying to implement where I can. It was also inspiring for me (as a new"ish" program coordinator) to be around people doing the same things I am doing and also helps to know the issues I face, good or bad, are mostly across the board with other. [I] feel that I was truly given a toolbox to walk away with, filled with new ideas, concepts, people, and resources that will help as an individual, as a mentor, and as a program coordinator. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

-The Conference . . . was well planned. . . the presenters informative and the info obtained outstanding. I greatly appreciated all aspects of the conference.

-Wonderful conference. Looking forward to the next one.

Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is this week!

2010-05-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone! I just wanted to remind everybody that the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking conference is THIS Thursday and Friday, May 27th and 28th. Registration, Breakfast, and the morning keynote will be held in the Simpson Hall Multi-Purpose Room, 6333 N. Winthrop Ave., however the entrance is on Sheridan Rd.

One of the many exciting things about the conference is how many new programs are participating. I will highlight these programs in a future blog post. However, I would like to give a shout-out to the Children's Home + Aid Society, the Abraham Lincoln Center, Jeanette's Joy Community Services, the Black Angel Network, and others that are recent additions to the conference network as well as the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator.

While we're so thrilled and excited about the conference, I must close on a more serious note. Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection is currently in another funding crisis right now. We don't have enough money to cover rent and payroll this week. Meanwhile, we have a conference this week as you all know, as well as our Year-End dinner next month, and our annual Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Tournament next month. If you would like to help out, you could sponsor a scholarship for someone to attend the conference, donate to the Year-End Dinner fund, or be golf tournament sponsor. Or, you could just mail a check payable to "Cabrini Connections" to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, 800 W. Huron, First Floor, Chicago, IL 60642 or just pay using PayPal. It's been too wonderful and successful of a year for us to be short of funds now. Help us stay afloat and donate today.

Year-End Dinner Link

2010-05-20T13:55:00.001-07:00

Hi Everybody! If you have noticed, in the upper-right hand corner of this blog is a new logo. That's the logo for the Cabrini Connections, Year-End Dinner, which will be Thursday June 10th from 6-8 at Cornerstone, just south of Wells and Division. If you click on the logo, you will be directed to a sponsorship page for the Year-End Dinner. If you believe that tutoring and mentoring as a way of helping at-risk youth succeed, the Year-End Dinner is a great celebration of the culmination of a successful year here at Cabrini Connections, and your sponsorship would be greatly appreciated.

Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is Next Week!

2010-05-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
Just a friendly reminder that next week is our May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. It will be Thursday and Friday May 27th and 28th at Loyola University Chicago. The keynotes and meals will be held in Simpson Hall Multi-Purpose room and the work shops will be held in various classrooms in Mundelein Hall, across the street.

What you can do in the time before the conference is help us find sponsors for scholarships for those who couldn't afford to attend the conference, otherwise. If you would like to help someone attend the conference, you can become a sponsor by going to this link:
http://www.tutormentorconference.org/sponsor.asp

Thanks so much everybody! We can't wait to see you at the conference!

Good News and Bad News

2010-04-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

While many wonderful things are happening with the conference, I also have very sad news to report on the Cabrini Connections front. Cierria Thomas, who was just 16 and a fourth year student in the Cabrini Connections program, passed away this weekend in a house fire. While most of my work has been with the Tutor/Mentor Connection these past two years, I did have the pleasure of knowing Cierria. The world has truly lost an incredible young woman and I hope that everyone keeps the Thomas family in their thoughts and prayers.

The loss of a wonderful student like Cierria only makes us more determined to help kids in need. Students like Cierria are the reason why we do the Tutor/Mentor Conference - so that we can all better help these wonderful students.

We have a two more workshops lined up for the conference - One on capacity-building with Tasha Robinson, Coordinator, Capacity Enhancement Program, Youth Network Council. The other is on tutoring tips and training skills with Jennifer Bricker and Devon Lovell of Family Matters.

Another bit of good news is that Baxter Laboratories has become a $500 sponsor for the Conference. We really appreciate their support. If anyone knows of any other companies that would be willing to sponsor, please leave a comment below.

Finally, the Tutor/Mentor Conference now has a GiveForward page. If you would like to help support the Tutor/Mentor Conference yourself, you can donate at the link above.

More Great Workshops and Panels for the Conference

2010-04-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone! I'm very pleased to announce some more workshops and keynotes that are scheduled for the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference:

-"Non-profits: How to get Mobile" - How texting can help non-profits presented by Brian Banks of Advatext.com

-"Race, Language, and the Achievement Gap in America" presented by Michael Levesque, Executive Director at LEAP Learning Systems

- "How to Help your Student Finance College" - presented by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission

- "How to Effectively Train Tutors by Partnering with other Organizations who serve the same Population" presented by Alex Cornwell of Chicago Lights Tutoring and Day at Fourth Presbyterian Church and Erin McPartlin of Cabrini-Green Tutoring

- "The Edgewood College/Cabrini Connections Partnership" presented by Thomas Holub, Professor of Education at Edgewood College, Madison, WI

- A workshop presented by Darrell Finch of the Milwaukee Housing Authority, Milwaukee, WI

- A keynote about the "Breakthrough Model - No Superstars Needed" by Bill Curry, Chief Operating Officer at Breakthrough Urban Ministries

- "Engaging Athletes as Advocates for Tutoring and Mentoring Programs," with Kurt Kittner, former University of Illinois and NFL quarterback and current Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection Board Member, and El Da'Sheon Nix, former Northwestern University wide receiver, and current administrative coordinator at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

- "The Way to a Successful Tutoring and Mentoring Project" presented by Amos Carmeli, Perach - the national Tutoring and Mentoring Project of Israel.

- "Creating your own Neighborhood Maps" presented by Mike Trakan, GIS and Mapping Coordinator of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

- "It takes a Village - Partnering with Others" presented by Sue Sowle, Social Worker at Project SOAR Mentoring at McGaw YMCA in Evanston, IL

- "Mentoring Program Strategies" with Joel Newman of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley in Davenport, IA, Christy Beighe-Byrne of Chicago Youth Centers, and Rose Mabwa of Mercy Housing.

- A keynote by Deanna Wilkinson, Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Science at Ohio State University

- Trends in Tutoring and Mentoring by Rose Mabwa, Mercy Housing

Hopefully these workshops, panels, and keynotes pique your interest. If you would like to present a workshop or register for the May Tutor/Mentor Conference, please visit the Tutor/Mentor Conference website. And, just as a reminder, the conference will be held Thursday and Friday May 27th and 28th at Loyola University Chicago's Lakeshore Campus. I hope to see all of you there!

Career Week Day 3

2010-04-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

This past week, since it's Spring Break for Chicago Public Schools, Cabrini Connections has hosted Career Week for our students. On Monday, Bradley took our students to Water Tower Place and De Paul University (Day 1 Here). On Tuesday, El Da'Sheon took our students to the home office of one of our volunteers, AJ Tyson (Day 2 Here). Yesterday, I had the great honor and privilege of taking one of our students, Christian Palacios, to see an accounting agency and to visit the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Our first stop was to Grant Thornton, an international accounting firm, where one of our volutneer tutor/mentors, Torquil Carlisle, works. Torquil is originally from England and worked at their London office for two years, before being transferred to the United States. While both Christian and I discussed coming in with preconceived notions of how boring accounting is, Torquil and the wonderful staff at Grant Thornton made it quite exciting! Torquil helps international companies make sure that they're paying their taxes and all of their accounts are okay, even when say, a product is manufactured in one country, bought in another, and the company is headquartered in a third. Pretty cool! I think Christian was especially interested in forensic accounting where accountants try and figure out why money is being lost and where it went. We learned that if we were to give just a couple of facts about ourselves, a lot of accountants would have the tools to find out everything about you. Scary but interesting at the same time.

Christian and were both really excited about going to the US Court of Appeals, where Lu Han, another volunteer tutor/mentor, works as a clerk. Christian wants to be a criminal defense attorney and I'm starting law school this fall at the University of Oregon law school. So it was career day for both of us! Lu explained to us the process of how people end up at the Court of Appeals and how it's different from regular trials you would see on tv. Did you know in a court of appeals there is no jury and there are three judges that sit on the trial? I didn't. Christian was really excited to find out that anyone can come and watch a trial at the court of appeals and Lu promised him that she would let him know when there was a really exciting case as well. I think I even might attend a trial and see how our law works in real life! Lu also was really kind in telling Christian about law school and answering my more specific questions about law school.

In any case, I know I had a great time yesterday, and I'm pretty sure Christian did too. My overarching impression was how wonderful it was to talk to two people who really love and enjoy their jobs. Torquil and Lu were so wonderful in sharing with us what they do and their enthusiasm for their careers is infectious. Thanks so much Torquil and Lu and thanks to Christian for coming yesterday. I think we both learned a lot!

The May 2010 Tutor/Mentor Conference is Shaping up Nicely!

2010-03-30T10:57:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone!
The May 2010 Tutor/Mentor Conference is shaping up nicely. We already have a number of workshops and keynotes booked:
- James Garborino, a professor of psychology at Loyola-University Chicago will be giving the morning keynote on Thursday morning, May 27th. He wrote the book, "Lost Boys," and will talk about young men and violence.
- Tracy Swartz of the Chicago Tribune RedEye and Phillip Thompson of the Mash, will be talking on how the media treats violence and how it relates to tutoring and mentoring.
- Scott McFarland of the Serve Illinois Commission will be giving a workshop about partnerships between tutoring and mentoring program and Serve Illinois, the state of Illinois's Commission on Volunteerism.
- Katie Cusack and Sandy Reyes of Gads Hill Center will be doing a workshop about "Thinking outside the Box: Creative Ways to Foster Youth Development.
- Jordan Hestermann of Becoming "We the People," will be giving two workshops: One on leadership in tutoring and mentoring organizations, and the other on how tutoring and mentoring organizations are fighting poverty.
- Cynthia Townsend of Temple to the Classroom, will be giving a workshop on "Achieving more Effective Tutoring and Mentoring."
- A panel discussion on how tutoring and mentoring organizations can better get media attention is in the works.
- Leap Learning Systems is also putting together a workshop or two on brain development and learning disabilities
- As always, there will be a volunteer recruitment and retention strategies and a student recruitment and retention strategies panel.
If you would like to do a workshop or be a panelist, you can leave a reply to this post, and/or fill out a workshop proposal online at: http://www.tutormentorconference.org/forms/presenter_form.asp
Thanks so much everybody!

Women of Color and Finances

2010-03-26T11:34:00.001-07:00

While perusing the news this week, I came across a story that made me go "Huh?" Apparently, the average single African-American woman in the United States is worth $5. The findings were from a study by the Insight Center for Community and Economic Development, titled “Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth, and America’s Future.” When I started thinking about it and between credit card debt, student loan payments, mortgage payments, car payments, etc., plus having the lowest average income of any other ethnic/gender group other than Native American/Hawaiian women, it starts making more sense.

However, this should not be a given. Those of us who work in tutoring and mentoring organizations work tirelessly to help empower low-income minority youth so that they have the tools to break out of poverty and find a career that they enjoy and that pays well. If many of the young women who we work with end up being worth $5, that's a problem for all of us and needs to be remedied.

I encourage you to read this 5-part series on Women of Color and Finances by Latoya Peterson on the blog Racialicious. Please read the comments as well, because many of the comments, not just from women and not just from people of color, talk very frankly and intelligently about why they find themselves with financial problems.

Many of the reasons that the study gives, and that Ms. Peterson and the commentors also talk about are the same problems that we are trying to combat working in tutoring and mentoring programs. Some talk about growing up in poverty, where their family lives from paycheck-to-paycheck. The idea of saving money is foreign and when money does come in, it is spent. Some individuals, if they do find themselves to be successful and making money, find themselves burdened with taking care of their parents, other family members, and friends who are less fortunate financially. There is also less of an emphasis on financial education (although I think so many of us need better financial education) and so oftentimes these individuals find themselves in credit card and/or student loan debt. Finally, when it comes to finding a job, these individuals oftentimes find themselves without a network and networking skills that can help them get a high-paying job after college.

I believe that tutoring and mentoring programs have a duty to help all young people set themselves up well financially. I know many programs emphasize job-shadowing and network building, but I also believe we have a duty in helping educate our students financially as well. It's one thing to help our students go to college and find great jobs. It's another to help them actually spend money wisely so that they will be able to save it and invest it in their future.

Exciting happenings at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection

2010-03-12T10:20:00.000-08:00

Cabrini Madness is truly in full-swing now! If you haven't been watching the videos that our PIP fellow, Bradley Troast has been making, please check them out here! Yesterday we had Tim Doyle, former Northwestern University basketball star and current Big 10 Network analyst be our bracketologist for Cabrini Madness.

Also, Cabrini Madness is featured in this week's Skyline newspaper in a wonderful article by Felicia Dechter. Check it out!

Finally, my team, Passion's Team, is hosting a bar night tonight, Friday March 12th, from 7-10pm at the Galway Arms, 2442 N. Clark St., just north of Clark and Fullerton. $40 for all you can drink beer, wine, and call drinks (and appetizers). If you can't come, but still want to contribute, you can always donate at our GiveForward Page. Or you can write a check payable "Cabrini Connections" and note that you want it to go to Passion's Team and send it 800 W. Huron, First Floor, Chicago, IL 60642.

Vote for the Tutor/Mentor Connection to receive a Pepsi Refresh Grant!

2010-03-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

Exciting news! The Tutor/Mentor Connection has been chosen to compete for a $250,000 grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project. This grant will support the 12-month cycle of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. We are currently in 228th place for votes and need to be in the top-2 by the end of March. Please tell everyone you know to vote for the Tutor/Mentor Connection by March 31st.

Please support the Tutor/Mentor Connection and all it does to support tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago and vote here.

What Makes a Tutoring and Mentoring Program - This Video Answers that

2010-02-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

If you read the other blogs of my colleagues at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, you may have seen the blog post by our president and CEO, Dan Bassill on this video by Breakthrough Urban Ministries. I had the great fortune of visiting Breakthrough Urban Ministries last summer. You can read about my visit here.

When people ask me what makes a tutoring and mentoring program, I could go on forever about how they're important and what they do. However, this video succinctly describes the importance of tutoring and mentoring programs in just seven and a half minutes. It's well worth the watch.

The Tutor/Mentor Conference Needs Your Help!

2010-02-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

The May 2010 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is well under way. The conference planning committee already has had one meeting and lots of great ideas were shared.

However, in order for the conference to be a success, we need help from sponsors who will support us giving people scholarships, and providing food, beverages and materials for the conference. Our Tutor/Mentor Conference is not a unique one. Mentoring partnerships throughout the country have mentoring conferences every year. These conferences are well-funded by sponsors who believe in the possibilities and solutions that mentoring creates.

For example, Mentoring Partnerships of Minnesota has a mentoring conference every year. They also have a training institute that offers workshops to help mentoring programs become the best they possibly can be. Mentoring Partnerships of Minnesota is generously sponsored by several well-known national companies that are based out of Minnesota, such as 3M and Target.

Another example is Washington State Mentors who also put on trainings and events similar to the Tutor/Mentor Conference. Washington State Mentors benefits from hometown supporters, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as Bank of America and Costco.

Why can't something like this happen in Illinois. First of all there is no Illinois Mentoring Partnership. The Tutor/Mentor Connection is actually the closest that we have in Illinois (that we know of at least) to a mentoring partnership. So why don't local or national corporations that are based in Chicago do the same thing to sponsor the Tutor/Mentor Conference? Hopefully, we'll be able to show what other states have done to foster partnerships and help mentoring (and tutoring in our case) programs become better and convince these corporations to sponsor the Tutor/Mentor Conference.

The May 2010 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is Under Way

2010-02-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

Does it seem like the November 2009 Tutor/Mentor Conference just happened? I know, me too. But, the May 2010 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is under way. This year it will be held at Loyola University Chicago's Lakeshore Campus in Rogers Park. The keynotes will be held in the Simpson Hall Multi-Purpose Room just off the corner of Sheridan Rd. and Sheridan Rd. (I know). Workshops will be held in classrooms nearby in a location to be announced.

Right now, we want YOU to be involved in the planning of the conference. If you would like to be a part of the conference planning committee, leave a comment in the comments section below. You can also join the discussion about the conference on our Tutor/Mentor Connection Ning Site.

If you would like to submit a proposal for a workshop or a panel, you can submit a proposal here. You can also register online here.

I have a great feeling about this conference being the best one yet. But, we need your help and input. Get involved and make the Tutor/Mentor Conference the best one for you as well.

Cabrini Madness - Support Passion's Team

2010-02-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

If you're a regular visitor to this blog, you might have noticed the little basketball cartoon in the upper right hand corner (it was a graphic designed by our tech club!). If you were extra curious and clicked on it, you would have been redirected to our Cabrini Madness information page.

So what is Cabrini Madness? Well, in an effort to get everyone (students, volunteers, staff, board members, volunteer coordinators, club leaders, and outside friends and family) involved in raising money for Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection, and to take advantage of the excitement of March Madness, we have created Cabrini Madness. Cabrini Madness is a bracket tournament-style fundraiser where teams are formed (there needs to be at least one student, one volunteer, one staff member/board member/volunteer coordinator or club leader, and one outside person. Teams can be up to 10 people), and compete against each other to see who can raise the most money.

You can see which teams are raising the most money on our Cabrini Madness Give Forward Page. You'll also see that my team, Passion's team (why Passion's team do you ask? Well, our team leader is student, Passion Tucker, and we all thought her name was too beautiful and awesome for it not to be our team name) hasn't raised any money yet. You can help us out by donating to our give forward site at the link above or by writing a check payable to "Cabrini Connections" and noting that it's going to Passion's team and mailing it to:
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642

If you would like to help Passion's team fundraise in any way, please leave a comment in the comments section.

National Mentoring Month Ends - Questions Remain

2010-01-29T14:21:00.001-08:00

It's almost the month of January, which means the end of National Mentoring Month. If you haven't checked out our Cabrini Connections kids thanking their tutor/mentors as part of National Mentoring month, please do:

Anyway, as part of National Mentoring Month, I have been researching mentoring partnerships in other states. Many states have coalitions similar to the Tutor/Mentor Connection that are recognized by Mentoring.org. What would it take to create a similar partnership in Illinois? How could we turn the Tutor/Mentor Connection into a recognized mentoring partnership? I encourage you to take a look at other states' mentoring partnerships and see how they have done it. (I have to give a shout-out to my home state of Oregon who has an especially informative and comprehensive website!)

Greater Chicago Food Depository - A Great Ally

2010-01-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

The past week I've been researching new tutoring and mentoring programs that were not listed on the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and deleting old ones that have closed. Along the way, I came across the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which is a fantastic organization that feed's Chicago's hungry at a variety of sites.

Obviously the issue of feeding children is especially important in these tough economic times. Here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection we always try and have a snack ready when our kids come in after school because sometimes, that will be the first time the eat during the day. Kids can't learn when they're hungry and the Greater Chicago Food Depository is doing its best to make sure that there are numerous sites throughout the city where children can have access to a warm meal.

That's why I was so happy to come across this list of programs that Greater Chicago Food Depository has put up of programs that they have teamed up with in order to make sure as many children as possible have access to a warm meal. This is especially important during the summer months when kids don't have the benefit of a free school breakfast and lunch.

Anyway, many of these programs that help make sure that the children of Chicago are fed year-round also happen to be tutoring and mentoring programs that are listed in our program locator. On behalf of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I want to salute the Greater Chicago Food Depository for realizing the assets that these programs are in their communities and taking advantage of their sites in order to make sure kids are fed. I also want to commend the Greater Chicago Food Depository for making sure these programs are known and listed. I hope that other programs like the Greater Chicago Food Depository will take their example and team up with programs in order to better to serve their communities and give recognition to these programs, just like the Greater Chicago Food Depository has done.

Students thank their Mentors at Cabrini Connections

2010-01-21T11:36:00.000-08:00

Also, here's a video of our kids here at Cabrini Connections, thanking their mentors:

Thanks to my Mentor.

2010-01-21T11:28:00.000-08:00

To continue with the theme of National Mentoring Month, I thought I should take the time to write about the mentor who inspired me the most in my life. Today is National Thank Your Mentor Day. This is a repeat of last year, but I thought you can never thank someone too much.

I have had many wonderful mentors who have guided me, but there is one that I think truly made me the person I am today. Her name was Merrill Watrous and she was my 5th Grade Teacher. Mrs. Watrous was one of those teachers that found a gift in every child and tried to bring out that gift. For the students that struggled in school, she did what ever was possible to bring them up to speed, whether it was staying with them after school to work with them on an essay or gave them extra materials to study for history exams. For the students who excelled, she gave them reading recommendations, news article recommendations, and extra credit assignments to push their ability.

Mrs. Watrous was the one who encouraged my interest in history - she gave my assignments to write about great American women such as Abigail Adams and Sojourner Truth. She had me read the poetry of Maya Angelou and encouraged me to try and read the New York Times. For all of her students, Mrs. Watrous emphasized the importance of history, especially the history of minorities and the poor. She taught us spirituals and learned about the slave trade. She assigned us to read The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox, about a slave ship, Lyddie by Katherine Paterson about a young girl working in a factory during the 19th century to teach us about child labor, and Dragon's Gate by Lawrence Yep to learn about Chinese-American history. The fact that I can remember these books 13-14 years later is a testament to what an impact they had on me.

Ultimately, Mrs. Watrous wanted us to be informed, passionate citizens of the world. She encouraged us to know about those who were in need, but also to learn about great figures to become our personal heroes. To this day, I still say Abigail Adams, Sojourner Truth, and Eleanore Roosevelt are personal heroes to me - all figures that I studied in 5th grade. She also had us keep journals, telling us to write not about what we learning in class, but about what we were interested, and what we were feeling that day. She encouraged us to be editors to one another and always had us "Say one nice thing to someone everyday."

Finally, as the tallest girl in the class (I know at 5'4'' this seems amazing now, but I was in the 5th grade), Mrs. Watrous encouraged me to stand tall and take pride in who I was. It helped that she was tall herself and carried herself with confidence but also with warmth. She also gave the best hugs, and I'm sure many of my classmates could attest that a hug from Mrs. Watrous could make any bad day better.

Mrs. Watrous was most definitely the catalyst that led me to want to work in the public interest sector and led me to want to work at Cabrini Connections. I also think her emphasized on journaling has continued in my blogging - first when I was studying abroad in Paris, and now working at Cabrini Connections.

If someone has been a great mentor to you, please let me know and I would love to publish your story. We all have mentors, and many of us have several of them. National Mentoring Month is a wonderful time to thank these mentors for making the world a better place

Step 6 in Raising Money by Running a Race - Complete your Race!

2010-01-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

You've raised your money . You've put in your training. This is the moment you've been waiting for:
6. Run/walk/bike/swim your race! This is the fun part! Once you've raised all that money, you're going to be so pumped to actually complete your race. I ran almost all of the Chicago marathon with a huge grin on my face because I knew how many kids I helped support (I'll admit I didn't exactly have a grin on my face miles 22-26.2, more like a look of determination, but still) Also, tell people to come out and cheer you on. I saw several people who supported me throughout the training - both emotionally and financially - who came out and cheered me on. Make sure you have someone in the last couple of miles like my dear friends Nate and Bethany Sutton who were at the painful mile 23 with cheers and hugs.

Step 5 in Raising Money by Running a Race - Tell Everyone How You're Doing!

2010-01-14T06:59:00.000-08:00

When I was in the midst of my training, everybody was asking how I was doing. Some people would see me hobbling around after my 16 or 18 mile runs, but a lot of friends and family far away were very interested in keeping up-to-date with my progress. I noticed people were also interested in how our progress was in fundraising. So, in order to keep everybody up-to-date with your training and fundraising progress, here's what you do:

5. Blog about your progress! Fortunately I already had this blog to talk about how my training and fundraising progressed. If you don't have one, I encourage you to set one up because not only are you able to tell the world about how you're doing, but also are able to tell the world how much you appreciate everybody's donations. Include pictures and stories. People were also curious about what I was listening to as I trained (I'm sorry, but I just can't run 20 miles without some good music. The marathon itself was another matter because of the cheering crowds.) I was shocked about how curious and intrigued people were and how much they enjoyed reading my stories on my blog.

Step 4 in Raising Money by Running a Race - How to actually raise that money

2010-01-12T06:59:00.001-08:00

So you've dropped little hints that you're training for a race and doing it for charity. Now, it's time to actually ask. Here's how:
4. Ask in a variety of ways. We noticed a two-pronged strategy worked best. A lot of our young friends donated online. We used FirstGiving as our portal for donations but there are a variety of great online fundraising portals that are safe and legitimate. I'd like to give a special shout out to GiveForward, which has been a huge supporter of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection in the past year. All of them will have a variation of a web page explaining what race you're training for and what the organization your fundraising for is. There also is a secure payment link where people can use their credit card to give a donation.

However, we noticed a lot of our older friends and family were a little leery of donating online. That's why we also sent out letters with all of the pertinent information in them as well. I'd say the number of mail donations vs. online donations was about 60/40 for mail to online. A lot of charities also have a paypal site which you can include in e-mails and other communication. Make sure to keep track of every donation you receive - I just printed out all of the donations and put them in a binder. This will make the charity's life easier when they get audited and the donor's life easier when they do their taxes.

Step 3 in raising money by running a race- This might surprise you

2010-01-08T06:58:00.000-08:00

You've signed up for your race and found your training partner. Maybe you've started training a bit (quick bit of advice - do follow the training plan that the race gives out. Most races do. I really think that I didn't get injured/burnt out because I followed the Chicago Marathon's Training Beginner training guide to a T. Also, they usually do a nice job with making it doable while still having a life.)

Anyway, you're ready to start fundraising. But before you begin asking, follow our Step 3 and people will be MUCH more receptive to your asking:

3. Don't startle people with asking for money. Nick and I sent out letters to friends and family explaining what Cabrini Connections is and why they should donate in late-August/early-September, just a little over a month before the race. However, we had been telling people for at least six months that we were running the marathon and why we were running for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. Just drop it into casual conversation. Trust me, it's not awkward, if you don't ask right then and there. But if you talk about it initially as an abstract idea, potential donors will begin the thought process of "Oh hey, Joe's running the marathon for charity. He looks like he's training pretty seriously. I should donate to his efforts." When you do ask, they'll be more likely to give.

Day 2 - You've Signed Up for a Race, Now What?

2010-01-06T15:36:00.000-08:00

So you've signed up for your race. Congratulations! But now, you're a little intimidated about how you're going to get from where you are now to finishing that race.. How do you do it? Here's step 2 of my training/preparation plan for charity:

2. Find a running/fundraising buddy, or a bunch of them! There will be days when you get home from work during your training and you're exhausted. Or it's dark and cold outside and you just don't want to wake up early to get 4 miles in before work. I've been there. But, having a training buddy helps! You don't even have to run together (although that's always nice). My boyfriend/marathon training partner/fundraising buddy Nick was way faster than me (sub 4-hour marathon! That's FAST), but the simple fact that he was getting home from work too and putting on his running shoes helped so much in training, even though we ran separately. Having a running buddy for a charitable race means a fundraising buddy as well. I know I would not have been able to raise almost $3000 on my own. But thanks to Nick's enthusiasm for Cabrini Connections and willingness to get out there and ask for money from his own friends, family, and co-workers, I was inspired myself to get out there and ask as well. Plus, it inspires a little friendly competition. So find someone you know will help you keep to your plan and you will accomplish this goal together. (That's us after a fun run between bars last Spring. A lot of people in our running group were donors and supporters of our marathon training and fundraising effort as well. See training CAN be fun!)

Getting in Shape for a GREAT Cause? Step 1

2010-01-05T12:57:00.000-08:00

So you've made your New Year's Resolution to get in shape. Maybe you want to lose weight, maybe you just want to get back into the shape you were in before the holidays, or maybe you were always a casual athlete but want to challenge yourself. In any case, before the new year, you made excuses for yourself, but now you're ready to go for it. However, you need a little more motivation than to fit into your skinny jeans. Maybe you also have a cause you're passionate about. You volunteer at a soup kitchen every Saturday, or you walk dogs at your local animal shelter, or you're a tutor or mentor. This is your motivation, to raise money and awareness for an organization that you love by running (walking, swimming, biking, basically moving) in a race.

Trust me, I've tried the going to the gym every day type of resolution. And the lose 10 pounds resolution. But last year I realized that in order for a resolution to stick, I'd need to combine a goal that I couldn't back out of (signing up for the Chicago marathon) and doing it for a cause I'm passionate about. So here's Step 1 of fulfilling that New Year's Resolution and helping your favorite charity:

1. Sign up for a race. Be reasonable and be KIND to yourself. Don't sign up for a marathon if it intimidates you. If running a 5-k is a big step for you, sign up for one if you think you can finish it. Also, if you hate running, but enjoy swimming, or biking, or even walking there a variety of races where you can raise money for your favorite charity. Do some research, and I'm sure you'll find something. A favorite resource of mine is the Chicago Area Runner's Association website, which has a calendar of races that you can enter throughout the year. They also give you resources for training groups and other fun races along the way. I think you'll find the mere fact of signing up for a race (which you'll raise money for) a very easy and much more concrete goal than just fitting into your skinny jeans.

But how will you get the motivation to stick with your training? Find out tomorrow . . .

Happy Birthday to Me!

2010-01-05T11:52:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone! Today, January 5th, I'm a quarter-century old. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you should donate to Cabrini Connections for my Birthday Cause. This year, rather than asking for presents (Lord knows I have enough stuff), I would appreciate if everybody would donate to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Also, if you have an upcoming birthday and are a member of the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection Facebook Cause, please consider us as the recipient of your birthday cause. If you have an upcoming birthday and are not yet a part of our cause but believe in giving every youth a chance to succeed in life no matter what their background is, please join our Facebook Cause.

New Year? New Year's Resolution? Here's How I Actually Followed through with Mine

2010-01-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Everyone! And Happy National Mentoring Month! I love how each new year begins with a month dedicated to that special relationship where one individual guides another in their growth.

Anyway, as it is the beginning of the year, we're all thinking of New Year's Resolutions probably. I know that many people resolve to lose weight or get in shape and many people become frustrated in this goal after a month or so. A lot of people also resolve to do something to help their community as a New Year's Resolution. If you have read my blog before, you know that in 2009, I raised almost $3000 for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection by running the Chicago Marathon.

Last year I was one of those people who resolved to get in shape and do something a little extra to help my community. By working for a fantastic organization such as Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, I feel so fortunate to be able to say that everyday I do something to help the community. However, I wanted to do a little extra outside of what my job title dictated and I knew that 2009 was going to be a rough year economically, especially for non-profits. It was at Martini Madness in October of 2008 when after a few (too many?) martinis, my boyfriend, Nick Infusino, said "Hey! Let's run the Chicago Marathon for Cabrini Connections next year!" and I replied "That's a great idea!"

For some reason, however, that idea wasn't just one of those drunk ideas that falls to the wayside. As 2009 approached, I decided that it was the year I was going to get in shape and run a marathon. I had always been an avid runner, but I had gotten out of shape for a variety of reasons. The idea of running the marathon was a goal that I felt was feasible and combined with the fact that I would be running it for a worthy cause was all the more reason to follow through. 10 months later, on October 11th, 2009, Nick and I were finishers of a major marathon and helped bring in almost $3000 from friends and family who supported our effort. Over this next week I will tell you how I stopped worrying about the marathon and fundraising and start loving it!

When you give, think of the Tutor/Mentor Connection

2009-12-17T11:16:00.001-08:00

Last week I received a very nice e-mail from a tutoring and mentoring program leader who attended the November conference. They thanked us for having the conference and told us about how they are collaborating with a leader of another organization in a high-poverty, low-income neighborhood to help at-risk youth succeed. He writes, "We are going to plan activities with youth from both of our programs that focus directly on building friendships with kids from other neighborhoods, instead of falling into a 'gang mentality' and feeling people from other communities are enemies. I look forward to meeting with him again and I look forward to visiting your program as well."

This is what the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is all about - giving leaders in the tutoring and mentoring community the tools and resources to help the kids in their neighborhood succeed. But we can only do so much and that's why it's so gratifying to hear of people collaborating and learning from each other in the time between conferences.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection is a vital part of connecting tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Unfortunately, the economic downturn has taken its toll on the Tutor/Mentor Connections and the programs it serves. I encourage to read my colleagues Dan Bassill's and Mike Trakan's blogs to read more about all the things that the Tutor/Mentor Conneciton does. Many of you will be giving charitably this year. Since you read this blog, please consider the Tutor/Mentor Connection in your charitable donations. To donate, please write a check made payable to "Cabrini Connections" and send it to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, 800 W. Huron, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60642 or visit http://www.giveforward.org/tistheseason/

Happy Holidays everyone! May they be safe and merry!

Thank you Jelly for Supporting Us!

2009-12-11T14:15:00.001-08:00

If any of you are in the Lincoln Park neighborhood tonight, or are looking for something fun and charitable to do, come to Noble Tree Coffee and Tea, 2444 N. Clark St. at 10pm. Jelly, a consortium of freelance technology people are hosting their holiday party (called "Tech the Halls." Baddum ching!) their and the beneficiary is Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. Admission is free, but you do have to RSVP before. Thanks so much to Jelly for supporting us this holiday season!

Also, the Chase Giving Challenge, where Chase Bank will donate $25,000 to each of the top vote-getters has been extended another day and will go on through tomorrow, Saturday December 12th. Please click on the button below and support Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, but also be sure to see if any of the other charities that you are passionate about are trying to get votes as well.

Holiday Bar Night for Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection Tonight!

2009-12-04T12:54:00.001-08:00

If you've ever been to one of our bar nights, you know how much fun they are. Trust me - everyone I know who's ever gone has a great time and anticipates the next one. I think it's a combination of great people (staff, volunteers, friends, and family) having a good time at the end of the week and at the same time, raising money for a great cause.

Anyway, we're having a bar night TONIGHT, Friday , December 4th from 8pm-12am. It's at Fizz Bar, 3220 N. Lincoln Ave., just off of Lincoln and Belmont and just south of the Paulina Brown Line Stop. Admission is $40 (this goes to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection) and covers beer, wine, and well drinks. There will also be appetizers.

In the upper right hand corner is another graphic created by our tech club. This was created by one of our students. Hopefully it will remind you why we do what we do here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection and why we need your dollars to continue to help these kids create amazing things.

Chase Giving Challenge on Facebook

2009-12-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody! So if you're on Facebook, I'm sure you've seen the Chase Giving Challenge. Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection is one of the organizations vying for a chance to win $25,000 (which is A LOT for a non-profit!). We just need to get as many votes as possible before next Friday, December 11th.

Here's what you have to do. Go to the icon below and click on it. Login to Facebook and they'll ask you to become a fan of the Chase Giving Challenge. Then you can vote for us. It's free, quick, and easy. And what's really cool is if there's another charity that is near and dear to your heart, you can vote for 19 other charities as well to receive money.

So if you've become a fan of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection by being a student in the program, volunteering for us, coming to one of our conferences, learning about us online or any other way, please vote for us to receive a much-needed donation!

'Tis the Season to Donate!

2009-11-30T08:31:00.000-08:00

It's almost the first of December, which means we're winding down from the November Tutor/Mentor Conference and winding up for Holiday Donation Season. I think the former will reinforce the latter as evidenced by these comments from our conference evaluations:

" Overall, I felt the conference was AWESOME!! Kudos to Dan Bassill and his staff." (They also, very kindly added a kudos specifically to Bradley for his awesome job directing parking - "Kudos . . . especially [to] the guy who 'stood outside to handout the parking passes/direct attendees to the conference. Who would want that job?:) NOT ME!!")

"I'm ecstatic that I learned about this conference and could attend. I have a new energy to develop and and implement new initiatives into my organization that I never would have come up with I wasn't here."

"Well organized!"

"Thank you! Great location!"

"Everything was excellent!"

and I think this is actually a compliment to the conference as well "More workshops need to be offered and more days need to be added."

A lot of people also inquired about when the next conference is going to be and what workshops will be offered. As of now, the only thing we're sure of is that it will be sometime in mid to late May. But in order for the great momentum that the November Conference created - we need your help - both organizationally and financially. If you would like to be a part of the Tutor/Mentor Conference Planning Committee, leave a comment and I'll contact you. If you would like to donate to tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago, there are two ways:

1) We have a nifty FirstGiving Page dedicated to Holiday Fundraising. Many of you are going to donate to your favorite charity for the Holidays, why not it be for tutoring and mentoring?

2) You can also print this form out, write a check payable to "Cabrini Connections," and mail it to: Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, 800 W. Huron, First Floor, Chicago, IL 60642

Also, just to illustrate where your dollars go to, the graphics in this post were created by the Cabrini Connections Tech Club, one of our four clubs where students explore their interests and use their talents to create wonderful things. Donors like you make it possible for students like the ones in the tech club to be able to explore their talents and even possible careers for the future.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T11:01:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving (Today is Thanksgiving Eve?) and I just want to wish everybody a happy, pleasant, and safe Thanksgiving!

Of course Thanksgiving is a time where we count our blessings and remind ourselves what we are thankful for. In addition to being thankful for my health, a loving family, wonderful friends, and a loving and supportive (and fundraiser-extraordinaire!) boyfriend, I'm also thankful to have such an amazing job where I can make a difference, albeit a very small one.

Thanksgiving is also a time where we remember those left fortunate and is the start of the biggest giving season of the year. Please read my co-workers blogs, Dan Bassill's, Bradley Troast's, El Da'Sheon Nix's, and Mike Trakan's who all talk about different ways you can help out at-risk youth.

However, to give my 2 cents, please consider being a sponsor for the Tutor/Mentor Conference, or even for the admission of one person who qualifies for a scholarship. In total, about 155 people attended the November Conference last week at Norris University Center at Northwestern University in Evanston. Of that number 51 people were granted full scholarships, 51 speakers were granted free admission, and 12 people received reduced admission rates. We believe that attending the Tutor/Mentor Conference is important no mater what your financial situation is and that everyone who wants to, should attend. The conference does cost money to put on - we need to pay for room rental, catering, and photocopies, among other things. And to put things in to perspective - when you sponsor the Tutor/Mentor Conference or sponsor someone's admission to the conference, you are helping out tutoring and mentoring programs, and thus, children all over the country.

A final note, the graphic in the upper right-hand corner was created by Kierre Halbert, a 7th grader in Cabrini Connections in our Tuesday night tech club. Hopefully it will put a smile on your face and remind you to give something so to tutoring and mentoring programs this Holiday Season, so that kids like Kierre can continue to create wonderful and creative things like the graphic and explore their talents in places like Cabirni Connections.

The Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference was a Success!

2009-11-24T09:09:00.001-08:00

This morning I received a very nice e-mail from a conference participant. We talked about how his organization can work with the Tutor/Mentor Connection at the conference and he was e-mailing to follow up, but he also added this nice note:

" It was great to meet you at the Conference last Thursday. I found it as an excellent opportunity to meet some great people and get some valuable information. I found the last session of the day, on fundraising strategies: 10 Ways to Stay Ahead in This Economy, to be one of the best; I'm glad I stuck around for it."

I think this note sums up what a success the November Tutor/Mentor Conference, was. Sheer numbers-wise, we had around 155 people attend this conference - more than any November conference since 2001. We also had a lot of people from organizations that I had not seen participate before, and people from Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, and New Mexico. Also, since we were at Norris University Center on Northwestern's Evanston Campus, we were able to have the participation of students from Northwestern. Finally, we were able to hear from a DePaul Chicago Studies class on what they learned about tutoring and mentoring programs in Chicago. Hopefully these students from two fo Chicago's top universities will take what they learned from this conference and become the future leaders in the tutoring and mentoring communities.

The first day was a bit hectic due to having swine flu vaccinations in one of the rooms on the same floor that we were having our conference. This meant that we had to not only direct many students to the swine flu vaccines, but also that we had to have one of our morning workshops and our lunchtime keynote in the Block Art Museum Auditorium next door. Fortunately, Block were gracious hosts and really kind about letting us use their space. Norris also proved to be very helpful in making sure all of our technical difficulties were taken care of and that everyone had internet and working PowerPoint projectors in their rooms.

Due to dealing with swine flu vaccines, making sure people go to Block museum and back, and dealing with a slight catering snafu, the only workshop I got to sit on was the volunteer recruitment panel that I was moderating. However, I felt that particular panel was the best one that I've moderated due in large part to the fantastic audience we had, who all had great and probing questions.

Fortunately, the next day I was able to sit in on two fantastic keynotes. Our first was Isaiah Brooms, who is a former Cabrini Connections student and now is the Director of Admissions at the Westwood College Virginia Ballston Campus. I was absolutely riveted as Mr. Brooms told his story of going from living in Cabrini-Green during the 1980s at the height of the crack epidemic and being shot at by gangs on a daily basis, to being an administrator in academia. I think many of the programs felt like what they do everyday was put into perspective by Mr. Brooms' story and were inspired to continue to do the good work that they do.

The other keynote that I was able to listen to was Valdis Krebs and Jean Russell talk about mobilizing your social network. Unfortunately I was only able to hear a portion of their talk because I had to deal with some technical difficulties in another room, but from what I did here really energized me to consider who is in my network and who do those people in my network know in their networks. As I mentioned in a previous post, I mapped my network for the Chicago Marathon donations that Nick and I received, but I think it would be worth it to map other networks as well.

So, with this great energy coming out of the conference we enter the Holiday giving season. If you have been inspired by these posts and learning about our conferences, there are a couple of things that you can do:

1. Help plan the May 2010 Conference.
2. Help promote the May 2010 Conference and everything that the Tutor/Mentor Connection does leading up to the May 2010 Conference
3. Help fund the May 2010 Conference - we had 50 people request full or partial scholarships. We also gave all of the speakers and panelists free admission. This adds up but we strong feel that these people deserve to come to the Tutor/Mentor Conference no matter what their financial situation is. Just think - your financial support of someone attending the conference today will foster a future leader in tutoring and mentoring in the future.

Inspired? Let me know in the comments! Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Tutor/Mentor Conference is TOMORROW

2009-11-18T17:45:00.000-08:00

Hello Everybody. I'm sure you can imagine my absence from this blog is a result of me being busy with last minute preparations for the conference. Well, the conference is TOMORROW, so a couple of things:

The November 2009 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is at Norris University Center, 1999 Campus Dr., Evanston, IL on the Northwestern Evanston Campus. Parking is in the lot just south of Norris on Campus Dr. Parking Permits will be $7 and will be available outside the parking lot from 8-9am and inside from 9am on. Registration is from 8-9am in the Louis Room lobby on the second floor of Norris.

If you have any questions or want to register, visit the Tutor/Mentor Conference Website.

I'll see everybody tomorrow at the conference!

Two Weeks Until the Conference

2009-11-05T07:56:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's already two weeks until the conference! October went by QUICKLY! But some great things are coming together for the conference and I hope you're just as excited as I am about it. Yesterday I talked about a great keynote speaker that we're having, Timothy Hogan of the Royal Order of Experience Design, who's talking about how businesses and non-profits can collaborate by having volunteers use their professional experience to help the non-profits.

Today, I would like to highlight a keynote speaker and a workshop that that touches on a topic that is currently quite relevant for many non-profits: the state of the current economy and how non-profits can stay funded and running through the current recession.

On Thursday morning, November 19th, the morning keynote will be by Jill Zimmerman of the Alford Group. Jill spoke at last May's Conference on grant-writing. This November, Jill will be doing a State of the Union on the economic climate and how it's affecting tutoring and mentoring programs. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know the struggles we've had here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection to stay afloat, especially this Fall. We're not the only ones though. I've talked to several programs that have had to shut down and lay off key staff members in order to stay open. This is not okay, especially in light of the continued violence that plagues Chicago and other big cities. (read Dan Bassill's blog article about the tragic shooting death of a DePaul student over Halloween weekend to get a glimpse of what we're dealing with). Knowledge is power, and since everybody has been affected by the economy, it's definitely worth your while to listen to Jill's keynote.

Then, later that day, during the second afternoon workshop, Liz Livingston Howard of the Northwestern University Kellogg Center for Non-Profit Management will be speaking about 10 Tips for Staying Ahead in this Economy. This workshop was also held this past May, but the topic is just as relevant now, if not more so and we really appreciate the Kellogg Center for Non-Profit Management coming back and doing this workshop again.

Like I've said before, the Tutor/Mentor Conference usually has a little something for everyone, so if using volunteers' professional skills or fundraising in a tough economy doesn't persuade you to come to the conference, maybe one of the future blog posts will!

Cabrini Connections Bake Sale - How do you get Volunteers and students more involved?

2009-11-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday, on Halloween, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection hosted a bake sale organized by one of our students, Melissa Young, and her tutor/mentor, Elena Lugo. At the beginning of this school year, when there was a distinct possibility that Cabrini Connections would not be able to stay open through the 2009-2010 school year, students, volunteer and staff came up with ways to raise money. I raised money by running the Chicago Marathon (which is still live and taking donations through January 1st, 2010!) El Da'Sheon Nix, our administrative coordinator, and Kurt Kittner, one of our board memebers, created a Northwestern-University of Illinois Challenge to see which universities alumni could raise more money before the Northwestern-UofI football game. Mike Trakan, our GIS and Mapping Coordinator hosted a mapathon. We also had the TRW hill challenge, hosted by a former Northwestern football teammate of El's - Matt Ulrich, which raised over $6000 at last count.

While we truly appreciate everybody's efforts in fundraising for our organization, we were especially impressed that one of our students decided to take the initiative and organize a fundraiser herself. Melissa decided that she was going to host a bake sale on Halloween. She got the word out to our volunteers, students, and staff through SVHATS and we had many volunteer tutor/mentors and friends of Cabrini Connections bring in delicious baked goods. My boyfriend Nick and I helped out, but most of the organizing that day was done by Melissa and Elena. We also had nine of our students help out by standing on Chicago Ave. And Halsted St. holding signs beckoning people to come into Cabrini Connections and buy delicious baked goods. The bake sale was a great success! People were coming in off the street as well as buying baked goods while they were in their cars, stopped at the stop light. Also, many of our friends and volunteers came in to buy the baked goods as well. Overall, we raised $328, which was a lot more than we had expected to raise. Hopefully other students will take Melissa's initiative and organize fundraisers of their own.

In the coming month, we will have more fundraisers hosted by volunteers. On Sunday November 22nd, one of our volunteer tutor/mentors, Sarah Randag (also in our volunteer spotlight this week!) will be hosting a wine-tasting for Cabrini Connections at Cellar Rat Wine Cellar. Only 15 spots are left and it's $25 admission to find about wines that go well with turkey and other Thanksgiving food staples. During the holidays, one of our college zone volunteers, Stephanie Rogers, will be hosting a card-writing fundraiser by sending holiday cards written to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. For each card sent, $1 will be donated to Cabrini Connections.

Volunteers can be a great source of other services than tutoring and mentoring and fundraising as well. At our November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, Timothy Hogan, of the Royal Order of Experience Design will be doing the lunchtime keynote on Thurday November 19th. He was once a volunteer tutor and mentor but had to stop due to being too busy with his job. However, he did stay in touch with the Tutor/Mentor Connection through our monthly newsletter. Mr. Hogan realized that he could volunteer in a different way - by using his expertise in technology to help rebuild the Tutor/Mentor Connection website. He also has helped recruit other volunteers as well to help tutoring and mentoring programs with their technology needs. This is the perfect example of how volunteers can help out non-profits not just by volunteering directly with the service they provide (such as being tutors and mentors at organizations such as ours), but also by offering their professional expertise in technology, accounting, legal advice and much more. As Mr. Hogan demonstrates, even if you can't help out once a week as a volunteer tutor/mentor, there are still a variety of ways that you can help at-risk youth succeed simply by offering your professional skills to a grateful organization.

November Conference Workshops - Social Network Analysis

2009-10-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Today I would like to highlight two exciting events that will be happening at the November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. Both of them will be on Friday November 20th and will discuss how you can use your social network to your advantage.

The Friday lunchtime keynote will be presented by Valdis Krebs and Jean Russell. Valdis is an expert on social network analysis and mapping and Jean helps companies and non-profits with weaving and thriveability. What does this mean exactly? Well, Valdis and Jean are concerned with how companies and non-profits can use their networks to their best potential. We all have networks - our work networks, school networks, family networks, etc. Some of them overlap, some of them don't. But sometimes people act as if they have blinders on and don't see who in their various networks might help them reach their fullest potential.

There are many tools you can use to help reach your fullest potential in social networking. Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, Blogspot and Twitter are all tools that I have used online to reach out to people who I know from my hometown, college, and who I have met in the working world. But many people do not use these connections to their full advantage. This is what Valdis and Jean want to help you do in their keynote and in their workshop, which will be Friday afternoon. As they say, sometimes we shut out people from our network when they could have ideas or connections that could help you out. For example, when a non-profit applies for a grant offered by a corporation, it often helps to have someone in that corporation that you know be an advocate for your grant. In fact, many grants will have you list volunteers and board members, both current and former, who work at that corporation. But in order to utilize that tool, you have to work your social network.

A great personal example of working social connections is how my boyfriend Nick and I fundraised for the marathon. We started out by listing everybody we knew who might donate and making spreadsheets indicating when a person was contacted for a donation, how they were contacted (online or by mail), whether they donated, and whether we wrote them a thank you note. We started out with immediate family, close family friends, and our close circle of friends. This resulted in $830.20 in donations by early September.

Then, when funding was starting to dry up in early September, we delved deeper into our social networks. Nick took donation letters to work and e-mailed co-workers about helping Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. 8 of his co-workers donated totaling $430 in donations. I then asked my mom and dad for their connections. My dad sent me the addresses of friends and former co-workers who he thought might donate. 3 of my dads former co-workers donated totaling $103.60. My mom then sent me the addresses of childhood friends parents and teachers, which resulted in $339.40.

We also made a push on facebook, twitter, gchat, and general e-mails about the need for funding for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. Our high school and college friends came through in a pinch! Three friends I met through the Northwestern Public Interest Program Fellowship hosted a party for Cabrini Connections which resulted in raising $232! Friends told their parents about donating and before we knew it we had raised a total of $2,783.20 before the Chicago marathon.

Moral of the story is - you don't know who in your social network might be able to help you out - either with their own talent, ideas or funding, or with connecting you to people THEY know with talent, ideas or funding. I learned this lesson in fundraising the marathon, but I know I will want to attend Valdis and Jean's workshop on Friday afternoon, the 20th. See you there

One Month Until the Conference! Workshops to look forward to!

2009-10-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

The Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is in one month! We're so excited about all of the great speakers and workshops that we will be hosting that I will be profiling all of them over the next month.

The first workshop I would like to highlight is the "Understanding Tutor/Mentor Program Distribution in Chicago" workshop, which will be on Friday morning, November 20th, from 9:40-10:50am. This workshop will be led by first-year students at DePaul University and their professor, Janet Hickey, and will be considered their final for their Explore Chicago Class: Growing up in Chicago. Over this fall quarter, these students have been assigned a region of Chicago and have explored and analyzed the tutoring and mentoring programs in this region. Then they write about what they learned and what they think about these programs in a blog. This is a great way for them to give feedback to each other, but it's open to the public, so this is yet another way people can become interested in tutoring and mentoring

This is a great way for first-year students at a university to learn more about the city that the university in. Tutoring and mentoring programs are often pillars in their communities and serve a purpose that is so much bigger than tutoring and/or mentoring kids. Hopefully the students in this class will be inspired about the tutoring and mentoring programs that they have studied and will be compelled to become, volunteers, donors, or even leaders of their own tutoring and/or mentoring program. Hopefully, other universities will be inspired by this class as well and might consider offering a class like this or similar to it in the future. IT doesn't even have to be about tutoring and mentoring programs in Chicago - this model can easily be replicated at other universities in other cities. I must say I am inspired by these students and all of the hard work that they have put in so far. I highly recommend visiting their blog and reading what they have found out. I think you will be just as impressed and inspired as I was.

The Marathon is Over but We're Still Running!

2009-10-19T15:00:00.001-07:00

The marathon has been over for a week, but here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection we need your help to keep on running. Thank you to Maryjo Byrnes for your donation to our marathon training, which has so far raised $2,783.20 for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. If you had wanted to donate to Nick Infusino and me running the Chicago Marathon for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection but didn't or want to donate again, you still can through January 1st, 2010 on our FirstGiving page.

However there are a couple of other fun ways to give to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection this month. The first is through workplace giving. Over the past week, I have visited two CTA stations and the US Pretrial Services Office to speak about the Combined Charities Campaign or Combined Federal Campaign. What the Combined Charities or Combined Federal Campaign (depends on whether the organization is a federal organization or not) does is that employees can designate a portion of each paycheck to the charity of their choice and the donation is tax deductible. So, say I work for the CTA - I can designate a dollar per week to Cabrini Connections and that means a donation of $52 for the year. This is a great and easy way to give and it's been a lot of fun talking to people about what we do. We are "Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection" under the Black United Fund for the Combined Federal Campaign. For the Combined Charities Campaign, we're either "Cabrini Connections" under the Black United Fund or "Tutor/Mentor Connection" under Community Shares of Illinois if your organization does workplace giving already.

Corporations do workplace giving too, such as Northrup Grummond, Allstate, and Abbott Laboratories. You can read about how Northrup Grummond is helping organizations such as ours on El's blog. You can also read about how your work can get involved in workplace giving on Dan's blog.

Also, right now, the Chase Foundation, Parade Magazine and Facebook Causes have teamed up to give $50,000 to the cause that has the most donations on Facebook Causes until November 6th. The contest works like this (courtesy of Facebook causes):

The contest is simple: the cause that gets the most people to give $10 or more wins. Causes can win daily awards of up to $1,000 for getting the most donations in a single day, and overall awards up to $50,000 for getting the most donations over the entire challenge, which ends November 6th.

Go to www.causes.com to see the leading causes in the Challenge. From here, you can browse all competing causes or start a new cause. Or you can go directly to the list of your causes and pick one to help.

Once you have picked a cause, there are two easy ways to help:

Donate. Go to the cause you want to support and click on the green “Donate” button.
Tell your friends. Go to the cause you want to support and click on the green “Tell Friends” button. But don’t stop there—make phone calls, put your cause’s URL in your away message, and find other creative ways to get your friends to donate"

What we're trying to do here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection is to have the most donations for a single day. We want YOU to donate this Friday October 23rd so we can reach our goal. I pledge to donate $25 this Friday. What are you going to donate?

Finally, don't forget about the Charity Hill Climb, organized by one of El Da'Sheon's former Northwestern football teamates, Matt Ulrich. Here's the information on that, via Facebook Events:

"What: A charity workout! TWR will host our second “Hill Challenge”. The “Hill Challenge” consists of walking or running up and down a sledding hill as many times as you can in one hour. There will be a minimum $25 dollar donation fee. You are also encouraged to find sponsors to raise additional money. We suggest passing along this info to family/friends/businesses, etc. They can sponsor you per hill or give a flat donation.
Why: All proceeds and pledges will be donated to Cabrini Connections: an after school program dedicated to helping underprivileged youth become extraordinary adults (All proceeds are tax deductable).
When: Sunday October 25, 2009 at 9:30a.m.
Where: The sledding hill behind the Southeast end zone of Soldier Field.
Who: TWR clients and any friends, family members, peers, or colleagues who would like to get together for a great workout and raise money for a great cause!!!
Details: Minimum donation of $25 dollars will allow you entry to Soldier Field Hill Challenge plus you will receive a complimentary t-shirt!!! The winner of most donations will receive one Train With Ron personal training session!"

So, there are variety of ways to donate to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection even post-marathon! I'm going to keep trying to raise money - it's up to you to help us out!

Marathon is Over! But we still need your help!

2009-10-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

I can now say that I have run a marathon. On a cold, sunny, Sunday morning, I ran 26.2 miles through the streets of Chicago. I finished the race in 4 hours, 44 minutes, and 28 seconds. My goal was to get under 5 hours and I was very happy with the result. (Picture at the right is me tired and happy after the marathon. The picture was taken by one of our outstanding tutor/mentors, Anna Ashbaugh, who was volunteering for the marathon and greeted me at the finish line!) My boyfriend, Nick Infusino, (photo bottom left, looking a bit worse for wear, but hey, he ran fast!) who was also a tireless fundraiser for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection ran the marathon in a speedy 3 hours and 59 minutes. We both agree that we would do a marathon again in a heartbeat! In fact, I'm already looking at Spring marathons to run in since I had such a great time!

To add to the list of people who donated since last time, they are:
- Emily Byers
- Kathleen Cox
- Bob Baeppler
- Susan Lanza

Thank you again to everybody who donated to our cause! It was truly inspiring to see the outpouring of support and encouragement - both financially and emotionally - from family and friends as Nick and I took on this race. It was an honor to accomplish something both for myself and for such a great organization. Thanks also to our family and friends who braved the cold to come out and support us throughout the race.

In total we raised $2,757.00 before the marathon, which is incredible! However, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connections still needs your help and our FirstGiving website is still live and taking donations until January 1st, 2010 if you wanted to donate, but didn't in time for the marathon, or if you want to donate again. The marathon is over, but the need is still pressing and here.

School Violence Problem of the Day - Where are the Solutions

2009-10-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

If you've been following Chicago news lately, you have probably been inundated with stories about leaders from Mayor Richard M. Daley to President Barack Obama have been trying to come up with answers to the recent spate of violence in our inner city schools. You'll read about how Secretary of Education and former Chicago Public Schools Superintendant Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric Holder visited Chicago and promised an emergency grant to Fenger High School, the scene of the fatal beating of Derrion Albert. You'll read about how Mayor Daley has introduced new Police Patrols in schools and new CTA stops as measures to quell the violence. Unfortunately you will also read how a young mother was killed in a drive-by shooting in East Garfield Park last night, yet another victim or a random act of violence.

Dan Bassill has been writing about the complex solutions to an increasingly complex problem in his blog, that I encourage you all to read. What we can't stop saying however is that there are two very important ways you can help make kids lives better and steer them away from violence:

1) Volunteer to be a Tutor and/or Mentor. Visit the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and find a program near you to volunteer at. If you need help, don't hesitate to call us at 312-492-9614 and we'll help you learn how to use the program locator. Helping one student might not seem like a lot, but as the saying goes "To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world."

2) Donate to the Tutor/Mentor Connection. When you donate to T/MC you're donating to programs all throughout Chicago that we help throughout the year. And! There's a variety of ways to do just that this weekend:

1. Come to Martini Madness, which will be TOMORROW, Friday October 9th from 6:30-9:30 at the Store, 2002 N. Halsted at Halsted and Armitage. Admission will be $40 and will include all-you-can drink martinis, soft drinks, and appetizers. Wine and beer will also be available for purchase. There will also be a raffle with prizes such as two airline tickets to anyone in the continental United States, a free hotel stay, dinner for four at a top restaurant and more. You can pay for your admission online here.

2. Donate to Nick Infusino and me running the Chicago Marathon for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, which will be this Sunday, October11th starting at 7:30am. You can donate here and find out how to follow us by text message or watch us here.

Remember, even a donation of one to two hours of your time in tutoring and/or mentoring a child or donating even $20 to show your support will make a WORLD of difference to solving the problem of youth violence.

Why I'm running the marathon for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection

2009-10-07T08:37:00.001-07:00

If you read this blog, you of course know that I am running in the Chicago Marathon for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection on Sunday October 11th. The reasons for running the marathon were two-fold: 1) I decided that 2009 was the year I was going to get in shape and while I was always a casual runner who enjoyed running, I had gotten out of shape and decided that making it my goal to run the Chicago Marathon in October and get in shape was my New Year's Resolution for 2009. 2) I knew that 2009 was going to be a tough year for non-profits and I thought that my running in the Chicago Marathon to raise money for Cabrini Connections could come at no better time. So, my boyfriend Nick Infusino, who has been an incredible fundraiser himself, and I signed up for the Chicago marathon and have so far raised $2623.40 for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

However, there is a third reason and unfortunately it's been reinforced by recent events such as the beating of an honor student at Fenger High School which simply show us how important tutoring and mentoring programs are - now more than ever. In today's Chicago Tribune, Mary Schmich, who has written about tutoring and mentoring programs in the past, including our own, interviews Diane Latiker who is the founder and executive director of Kids off the Block in Roseland, the same neighborhood as Fenger High School. Unfortunately Kids off the Block is one of the few programs in Roseland, and we need many more people like Diane Latiker to step up and help kids have a safe place to go after school and where kids can have the resources to succeed in school and in life.

This is the purpose of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, to support individuals such as Diane Latiker who have gone above and beyond to help kids, but also to support individuals who take it upon themselves to start new mentoring programs. Tonight I will be speaking at a training for a new mentoring program for the Chicago Public Schools Summerquest Program and supporting the new tutors and staff memebers in starting a new program.

So what can you do to help stope the violence? There are two pretty easy things you can do. Number one, do what Diane Latiker says to do in the article:
"Volunteer," she said. "Find out who you can help. We need all the help we can get."

The other is to donate. You can donate to helping all of the tutoring and mentoring programs in Chicago by donating to my marathon fundraising for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection by visiting: http://www.firstgiving.com/nicolewhite3
On Sunday I will be running 26.2 mile for the kids in Chicago. What will you be doing to stop the violence?

Marathon is in 5 days!

2009-10-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

Hello Everybody! The Marathon is in 5 days and we're up to $2,623.40 in donations, which is fantastic. Here's a list of people who have donated since the last posting:
-Jenny Conat
-Melanie Kahl
-Kate Ashley
-Bethany and Nate Sutton
-Jimmy and Nancy Imamura
-Joey Knelman
-Ted Dearborn
A big thank you as well goes out to Courtney Spalding-Mayer, Whitney Spalding, and Sten Langsjoen for hosting a "Save Cabrini Connections Party" at their apartment Friday night. I'll write about it a bit more in the next post, but we raised $232, which is fantastic. Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection still needs your help though. Please donate by sending a check payable to "Cabrini Connections" to:
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642
or by visiting: http://www.firstgiving.com/nicolewhite3

Anyway, a lot of people have been asking about how they can track Nick and me in the marathon. The easiest and best way to track our progress is by signing up to get texts from the Chicago Marathon whenever we cross a certain distance (I assume the 5-mile, 10-mile, 15-mile, etc.) You can sign up to track Nick and/or me at: http://live.activeresult.com/msg/MSG-signup.tcl?event_id=37
You can also download the course map and figure out where you want to watch us run by here.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. It says the weather is going to be about 45 degrees and partly cloudy on Sunday October 11th, which will be perfect for this runner, but you might want to dress warmly since you will be standing around. Also, the marathon begins at 7:30am (in light of the heat of the last two marathons), so plan accordingly.

Anyway, it's been a lot of fun training for the marathon and I'm so excited about it. Thanks to everyone's words of encouragement and financial support throughout the process of preparing for the marathon. I can't believe it's almost here!

Thanks to Everybody who has Donated So Far!

2009-09-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

On Friday September 25th, we reached our initial goal of raising $2000 for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection by running the Chicago marathon. However, times are still tough and Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection needs your help more than ever. That's why we have increased our goal amount to $3000, which we hope to raise by Sunday October 11th. You can make that a possibility by donating at our FirstGiving site or by writing a check payable to "Cabrini Connections and mailing it to:
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642

I would also like to thank all of Nick Infusino and my friends and family who have donated thus far:
- Carla Reyes
- Steve Gorodetskiy
- Mardel Chinburg
- Peter and Barbara Bergreen
- JoAnn Stevenson
- Jean Vinson-White
- Mike White
- Dan and Peggy Erickson
- Maryann May
- Nina Nashif
- Kari Wergeland
- Fran Fritzmann
- Bill and Nancy Guerry
- Ralph and Pam Infusino
- Anna Ashbaugh
- Nicole Keogh
- Matt Cohlmia
- Carlos and Elisa Reyes Monterrosa
- Claire Walker
- Erin Infusino
- Sveta Trivino
- Katie Infusino
- Eric and Sally Kemmler
- Laura Eckstein
- Sarah Randag
- Kathryn Lee
- Gloria VanMilligan
- Scott and Julie Holman
- Sam and Toni Pace
- Emmy Moore
- Karen and Jeremy Clay
- Jim and Nancy McCready
- Jim and Gaby Infusino
- Tom and Janet Heinonen
- David Yeh
- Virginia Farkas
- Ron and Suzy Crasilneck
- Lila Schwartz
- Jack Prior

Some of these are family members, some of them are family friends. Some of them are co-workers, some of them went to Northwestern with us. Some are even volunteer tutor/mentors at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. Most of them live outside of Chicago but think that helping an at-risk child succeed in life is important enough that they donated. I am inspired by each and every one of these people who stepped up to the plate and helped out. Hopefully you will find them inspiring too and find it in your heart to donate.

Tutor/Mentor Program Survey still Live

2009-09-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

If you're a Tutor/Mentor Program and haven't participated in our Back-to-School survey that was discussed in a post last week, you can still take the survey. Just visit our Ning page where the link to the survey is posted, take the survey, and then discuss what you thought of the survey in the forum on the Ning page. For those of you unfamiliar with Ning, it's a social networking site similar to Facebook for programs such as the Tutor/Mentor Connection. So, check out the Tutor/Mentor Connection's Ning page, join Ning, and become a network with people who care about kids just like you!

The Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is in Two Months!

2009-09-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is in a little less than two months and we already have lots of great speakers lined up including:

- Friday Morning Keynote: Isaiah Brooms, Director of Admissions at Westwood College - Virginia Ballston Campus
Isaiah Brooms is a long time alumni of The Cabrini Green Tutoring Program (Currently, Cabrini Connections). Formerly a teacher in the Chicago Public School System, he relocated from Chicago to recruit, coach and teach at a private school in Indiana, and is currently the Director of Admissions for Westwood College located in Arlington, VA.

- Friday Lunchtime Keynote: Valdis Krebs and Jean Russell discuss social networking. Together, Valdis Krebs and Jean Russell explore, explain, and empower thrivable communities. Valdis specializes in social network mapping and analysis. Jean specializes in weaving and thrivability. Together, we work with both online and offline communities in both for-profit and non-profit organizations. Valdis has worked with organizations such as IBM, CDC, Cleveland Foundation and Barr Foundation. Jean works with organizations including PeopleBrowsr, Community Media Workshop, and Inspired Legacies. Together, Valdis and Jean are working with several on-line social networks to weave thrivable communities.
Valdis might also do a workshop as well.

Workshops that have already been booked include:

-Deborah McNelis, Braininsights - Creating Great Connections: Information EVERYONE Needs to Know - This workshop provides an overview of the basics of brain development. Through visual demonstrations you will gain insights into how you can have more impact on the learning brain. With this understanding, ideas are are also presented on how we can spread the word to those that can support of the needs for all young children.

-Joel Newman, Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley - Mentoring Program Strategies - Mentoring programs have their own special needs and issues that differ greatly from tutoring program. Talk to a panel of mentoring program leaders on ways to make your mentoring program a success!

-Rafael Gomez, Madison, WI Metropolitan School District - The Paradox of Education - The paradox of education brings an awareness how youth can develop skills to navigate in a free enterprise society under the guidance of a mentor. It is a schematic method for mentors not only serve as catalyst, but educators of free enterprise.

-Joshua Fulcher, Erie Neighborhood House - Model-Coach-Fade: How to Teach Anything - This workshop provides and teaches a structure for tutors to build a student's skill set for sustained academic improvement. It is a structure to teach virtually anything so students can work on their own. This method is used by Masters in Education programs across the nation.

- Tim Fulcher, Washington Initiative for Supportive Employment - Diversity in Mentoring: Community Building through Inclusion - Project MOVE is the first mentoring Program in the nation to use Big Brothers Big Sisters Support Model to Match mentees with disabilities (ages 16-21) with mentors to support transition from high school to higher education or employment.

-Xavier Salvado, Gads Hill Youth Center - You are the Best! Tips for Keeping Mentors Happy - Why are mentors volunteering in your program? What makes them choose to stay with you? What makes them leave? This workshop will explore different strategies that you can use in your program to ensure that your mentors feel that they are making a difference and are willing to stay longer with you!

This is only just a sample of the great workshops that will be offered at the November 2009 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. Just as a reminder, the conference will be held Thursday and Friday November 19th and 20th at Northwestern University's Evanston Campus. Please visit www.tutormentorconference.org for more information.

Survey shows programs need funding!

2009-09-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

As you have probably noticed from previous entries pleading for funding, money is tight right now at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. However, it's not just our organization that needs help. Tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago are struggling to find adequate funding.

Knowing that probably this was the case, and also in an effort to help programs throughout Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, I sent a survey out to the leaders of all of the tutoring and mentoring programs in our database. 17 programs responded and the results were striking but not surprising:

We asked programs to rate what were their most important priorities at the start of the 2009-2010 school year? There were eight needs for the programs to prioritize.

1. Finding operating dollars - This was the need that was given a high priority by programs and 53.9% said it was the highest priority. 18.8% said it was the 2nd highest priority, 6.3% said it was the 3rd highest priority, and 18.8% said it was the 4th highest priority. No one said it was the 5th 6th, 7th, or 8th highest priority.

2. Recruiting and retaining volunteers - This was the need that was also listed as the highest priority by 43.8% of the programs. 25% said it was the 2nd highest priority, 18.8% said it was the 3rd highest priority, 6.3% said it was the 4th highest priority and 6.3% said it was the 5th highest priority. No one said it was the 6th, 7th, or 8th highest priority.

3. Training volunteers - While I think is a very important need, because where is a program without properly-trained volunteers - it was judged by most to be the 5th highest priority with 40% responding that way. No one thought it was the highest priority, 13.3% felt it was the 2nd highest priority, 33.3% said it was the 3rd highest priority, 6.7% felt it was the 4th highest priority, no one felt it was the 5th highest priority, 6.7% said it was the 7th highest priority and no one thought it was the 8th highest priority.

4. Legal support - This was felt to be the least important need right now with 78.6% responding that it was the 8th highest priority. No one said it was the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th highest priority. 7.1% said it was the 6th highest priority, and 14.3% said it was the 7th highest priority.

5. Technology support- I was surprised that this was also not a very popular need with 42.9% saying it was the 7th highest priority. We always are looking for volunteers to help us with updating our websites and fixing our computers. Maybe programs don't realize how important their websites are for marketing and publicity and how important it is to have computers to help the kids learn. Anyway, no one said it was the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd highest priority, and 7.1% said it was the 4th highest priority. 21.4% said it was the 4th, and 21.4% said it was the 5th highest priority. 7.1% said it was the 8th highest priority.

6. Marketing and publicity - I feel like this coincides with funding because programs won't get funds if people don't know about them. This is why 35.7% said it was the 2nd highest priority even though no one said it was the highest priority. 21.4% said it was the 3rd highest priority, and 21.4% said it was the 4th highest. No one said it was the 5th highest, 14.3% said it was the 6th highest, 7.1% said it was the 7th highest priority, and no one felt it was the 8th highest priority.

7. Parental support - This was the only other need judged to be the highest priority other than finding funds and recruiting volunteers. 6.7% said it was the highest priority, but the majority of people judged it to be either the 4th or the 6th highest priority with 26.7% responding those ways. 6.7% also said it was the 2nd and 3rd most important need, 13.3% said it was the 5th highest priority, and 6.7% said it was the 7th and 8th highest priorities.

8. School Support - This was not the biggest priority either with the majority of the responses saying its the 6th most important priority at 26.7%. No one said it was the highest priority, 6.7% said it was the 2nd highest priority, 13.3% said it was the 3rd and 4th highest priority, 20% said it was the 5th highest priority, 13.3% said it was the 8th highest priority, and 6.7% said it was the least of the needs.

So, in essence, here are what the needs are of programs in descending order:
1. Finding operating dollars
2. Recruiting volunteers
3. Marketing and publicity
4. Parental Support
5. Training Volunteers
6. School Support
7. Technology Support
8. Legal Support

This is why I highly encourage you to donate to your favorite local tutoring and mentoring program as they start a new school year. If you would like to support tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago and the surrounding suburbs by donating to the Tutor/Mentor Connection, please send a check payable to "Cabrini Connections" and mail it to:
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642
Also, you can through PayPal by clicking this link.

Programs throughout Chicago have voiced their need. It's up to you to help them out!

What does the Tutor/Mentor Connection Mean to You?

2009-09-16T06:27:00.000-07:00

With funding for tutoring and mentoring programs becoming increasingly in short supply, just as the year starts, I thought it would be a good idea for people who have worked with the Tutor/Mentor Connection and its events, such as the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference to tell you in their own words what the Tutor/Mentor Connection means to them:

“The Tutor/Mentor Conference is a great way to recharge the batteries and connect with non-profit professionals facing many of the same dilemmas I confront on a daily basis. It’s an excellent tool to collaborate and learn new strategies on volunteer recruitment and retention that helps not only in Chicago, but in many rural communities in reach I serve. The conference, and its subsequent workshops, is a valuable resource to all attendees and is something I can’t afford to miss.”

- Joel Newman

Program Director, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley

Davenport, IA

"I just wanted to thank you and your staff connected with the Mentor/Tutor Conference for all the hard work you are doing with our youth. I have implemented a lot of the information I learned from the conferences in to our mentoring tutoring program at the (Education Initiative in Milwaukee Public Housing- see pdf). We are starting to see growth. I have professionals, parents, and college students involved with the youth. We started to see students getting more involved when we stopped taking about grades and started focusing more on who they are and what they want to achieve in life."

-Darrell Finch

Milwaukee Housing Authority

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

I think these two testimonies from professionals who work outside of Chicago are better than anything that I could tell you. The Tutor/Mentor Connection and its conference has helped people from all over the world help kids in a variety of ways.

If you would like to help out with the November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, please leave a comment and I will contact you. Just as a reminder, it will be held Thursday and Friday November 19th and 20th at Northwestern University in Evanston.

The Marathon is One Month Away!

2009-09-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
I want to first of all thank everyone who has donated to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection in the past couple of weeks. I came back from vacation to find out our payroll had been cut in half and that our organization was in danger of being shut down. This has been ameliorated in the short term by the incredible outpouring of support from donors like you, but there's still lots of work to be done.

This week we've had our volunteer and student orientations. Tutoring starts next week. It looks like it's going to be a great year from the enthusiasm and energy of the kids, volunteers, and staff. It would be such a shame if this all went away just because the funding wasn't there.

If you haven't donated to our marathon fundraising yet, NOW's the time. So far, we have raised almost $1500 from individual donors. We would like to raise much more to do our part to help keep Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection in business. If you would like to donate here are a couple of ways:
1. Write a check payable to "Cabrini Connections" and mail it to:
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642

2. Go to our PayPal Link: http://www.cabriniconnections.net/donate-online1

3. Go to our FirstGiving site and track our progress there:http://www.firstgiving.com/nicolewhite3

Thanks so much everybody for all of your support. Nick and I will continue to run and train so we will be able to run 26.2 miles. It's now time to do your part and donate so that Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection can help the kids of Chicago succeed.

Obama's First Day of School Speech

2009-09-09T11:28:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, throughout the country, President Barack Obama addressed students on their first day of school. You can watch his address here or read the transcript of the address here. Since I'm one of those visual learners, I needed to digest what the president said and then read the transcript in order for me to be able to fully take in everything the President said yesterday. No matter whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, I'm sure everybody found something they could take from the speech.

Since I view the world in the tutoring and mentoring perspective after having worked at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection for a little over two years now, I'll just comment on a couple of things that struck me after watching the speech yesterday, digesting it, and then reading the transcript today.

At the beginning of his speech, President Obama says:

"I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide."

This is one of the main tenants of tutoring and mentoring - that every child has the potential for greatness, no matter what the circumstances they grew up in. However, some of these kids need a little help along to discovering what they have to offer, especially if they have no support at home. This is where tutors and mentors come in.

President Obama goes on to say:

"And no matter what you want to do with your life, I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to train for it and work for it and learn for it."

One of the main ways to prevent dropping out of school is for students to enroll in an afterschool tutoring and mentoring program. With someone who ha their back and who won't give up on them, these at-risk students are less likely to give up on themselves and drop out of school.

Also, in regards to preparing for a career - Many tutoring and mentoring progams offer career training such as on how to write a good resume or how to dress for success at a job. Some tutoring and mentoring programs even offer job shadowing or internship programs at a variety of professions. When students learn what it takes to get the job of their dreams, they are also less likely to drop out of school.

An especially central part of Obama's speech was where he talks about his own story, growing up with no dad and not having a lot of money. This is something that a lot of kids that tutoring and mentoring programs can relate to. He says:

"Now, I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork. . .
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right."

These are all circumstances that many of our kids face everyday. Obama talks about how he succeeded despite difficult circumstances, as did the First Lady. He also highlights three students who have also succeeded despite difficult circumstances, including Shantell Steve, a young woman who has grown up in foster care on the South Side and who has succeeded acedmically and has become a leader in her community. What Obama doesn't say is that I'm almost positive that he, Mrs. Obama, and the three outstanding young people that he talked about all had mentors in their lives who encouraged them when they were about to give up and who helped them realize that they could be even better than they thought they could be.

That's what tutors and mentors are here for - to help young people who wouldn't have the support, guidance, and belief in them otherwise. Students working hard and striving to succeed are one part of the equation. The other part of the equation are caring adults who can help these young people become contributing members of society.

Unfortunately, many of these programs where students meet these tutors and mentors are being cut due to the economy. This is a shame and you should do everything you can to support your local tutoring and mentoring program. If you want to help tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago continue to succeed in this rough economy, I encourage you to do two things:

1) Volunteer - the role you may play in the program may be an even bigger role than just a one-on-one tutor/mentor. You have the potential to impact a large number of people with doing whatever you can with your time in helping these programs.

2) Donate - your dollars will come back to you better used than you can imagine. With the money you donate, programs can retain staff, help kids get into college, and help them into adulthood with the continued support these programs can offer.

If you would like to volunteer or donate visit the Cabrini Connections or the Tutor/Mentor Connection websites to find out more. Also, you can quickly donate by clicking the PayPal icon in the upper right-hand corner of this blog. We need your help now more than ever. But the payoff will be sure in the future.

If you missed Cabrini Connections on CBS Channel 2 . . .

2009-09-08T10:10:00.000-07:00

Last night, Cabrini Connections was featured in a story on CBS Channel 2 News. You watch the video here:
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/cabrini.connections.program.2.1169497.html
They do a great job talking about all the great things we do at Cabrini Connections, but didn't mention the Tutor/Mentor Connection at all. What needs to be promoted as well is how important the Tutor/Mentor Connection is to the tutoring and mentoring community in Chicago. If you read my blog articles under the label "Other tutoring and mentoring programs" you'll see articles highlighting other outstanding tutoring and mentoring programs in Chicago that I have visited over the past six months. Of course we want to promote Cabrini Connections, but we also want to promote other great programs too. We can only serve so many kids in a just one part of Chicago and so we want to support other programs in other parts of Chicago who are doing the same thing we're doing.

To further prove to you why the Tutor/Mentor Connection needs your dollars too, here are just a couple of reasons:

-We're the number one site for helping parents, teachers, social workers, students, and potential volunteers find tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. To see all the programs that are in the database, visit Tutor/Mentor Program Locator

-We help tutoring and mentoring programs throughout the country with starting up, better business practices and just general operating questions. To see all the ways we help tutoring and mentoring programs serve at-risk youth and be the best non-profits that they can be, visit Tutor/Mentor Exchange.

-We have a links library of over 1000 resources about everything from the school drop-out crisis to helpful homework help links. To see all the resources we have in our web library, visit the Links Library.

- We host a twice-yearly Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference which brings together tutoring and mentoring programs, as well as leaders in the education, media, legal, medical, and other communities, to discuss how they can better help kids. To find out more about the conference visit Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.

As you can see, the Tutor/Mentor Connection does a lot to help connect people who are in need of these tutoring and mentoring programs, as well as people who to support these tutoring and mentoring programs, with the tutoring and mentoring programs themselves. Unfortunately all these great things that the Tutor/Mentor Connection does will end if we don't find a consistent source of funding in the near future. We recently learned that we received $35,000 grant from HSBC, which will support our technological needs - something that was greatly needed and welcome. However, there is no foreseeable source of funding for the Tutor/Mentor Connection as of right now.

There are several things you can do to help the Tutor/Mentor Connection:

-If you have been touched by the Tutor/Mentor Connection in any way, please leave a comment to this blog post. It's always good for potential funders to see why they should fund these programs.

-If you want to help me plan the November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, which will be held Thursday and Friday November 19th and 20th at Norris University Center at Northwestern University in Evanston, you can also leave a comment or call 312-492-9614.

- If you want to help recruit volunteers to be tutor/mentors for programs throughout the city of Chicago as a part of our August and September Volunteer Recruitment Campaign, please leave a comment as well.

-Finally, if you would like to support the Tutor/Mentor Connection financially in any way - becoming a sponsor for the conference or helping fund salary for staff to keep the Tutor/Mentor Connection going, also contact us by phone or by e-mail.

Thanks to everybody who has donated in the past week! We raised $2500 individual donations alone! That's incredible. However, we need similar grants like the one we got from HSBC. Please let us know if you have any leads for us.

Thanks to the Garrard McClendon Show for having Dan on!

2009-09-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

So, apparently someone from the Garrard McClendon Show on CLTV Channel 10 read my blog post yesterday about CPS's 30million dollar anti-violence plan and asked Dan Bassill, the president and CEO of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection to come on. You can watch the interview here.

At the end Dan says "Give me $1 million a year for 10 years and I can do a lot more than they can with $30 million." This is so true. I think people would be shocked to find out what miracles we can create with as little money as we have. A lot of you are fans of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection and have seen all the good work we can do. If we had $1 million a year? Just you watch what great things we create with that!

Unfortunately, we do not have $1 million a year right now, or even enough to sustain us through September. We need your help. Here are a couple of ways that you can support Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection in these tough times:

1. Donate to Nick Infusino and me running the Chicago Marathon. Right a check, click on the paypal link in the upper right-hand corner of this blog, or visit http://www.firstgiving.com/nicolewhite3
So far we have raised $891! That's amazing and it's all thanks to you! Help us reach our goal of raising $2000 before October 11, which is the day we run the marathon. (And I'm running 18 miles on Monday so you don't think I'm slacking either:))

2. Pay for your Martini Madness admission today by visiting here. Admission is $40, but of course we will take more!

3. Attention all Northwestern and UofI Alumni! Our Cabrini Connections Administrative Coordinator, El Da'Sheon Nix, and former Northwestern Football Player is having a fundraise-off with Kurt Kittner, former quarterback for University of Illinois and now a board member at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Are you a Wildcat alum who hates to see the Fighting Illini win? (I know I am!) Visit http://www.giveforward.org/illinivsnuchallenge/

Er, yeah, we'd still like to see donations from UofI alums too. Visit http://www.giveforward.org/illinialumsgive/ ;)

Or if you love Big 10 Football, you could just donate to both!
If you want to know more, visit El's blog.

Anyway, there a variety of fun ways that you can help out Cabrini Connections. The easiest way is to just spread the word. Have a "Support Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection" status on facebook or gchat. Tell people at the Labor Day barbeques about all the great work we do.

Ironically, I'm attending a wedding where the bride and groom are both Illinois alums and are HUGE football fans. I assume a lot of the guests will be as well. While it will kill me to have UofI possibly beat us, I will definitely tell them about the fundraising challenge and see if we can all do our part in supporting Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

PayPal Link!

2009-09-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

If you're a frequent visitor to my blog, you'll notice a new addition to it in the upper right hand quarter. That's right, if you enjoy reading my blog and feel compelled to donate to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, you can just click the PayPal button and donate to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection so that kids can have safe place to go after school, maintain lasting relationships with their tutor/mentors, and that we can also support tutoring and mentoring programs throughout the city.

So what's holding you back? Click the button and DONATE!

CPS Unveils a $30 millionPlan to Prevent Violence

2009-09-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

Today I received in my e-mail in box an e-mail with an article from the Chicago Tribune about how Chicago Public Schools' Superintendent, Ron Huberman, unveiled a $30 million anti-violence plan today to help CPS's most at-risk students.

The article cites that two of the strategies that they plan to use to help kids in school and out of trouble is to have full-time mentors and getting the students jobs. Those are both great tools for giving at-risk kids the support they need. However, I wonder how CPS is going to approach this. Are they going to start their own mentoring and job-training program? Or could they align themselves with tutoring and mentoring programs in the neighborhoods where these schools with these kids exist? The Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Tutor/Mentor Exchange both have a wealth of resources to help CPS create a quality partnership with tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago. I hope that CPS has a plan like this and will support tutoring and mentoring programs like Cabrini Connections and many others throughout the city as we face the economic challenges that are threatening to end all of the good work that we do.

The Chicago Tribune quotes that this anti-violence plan is going to help 1200 students. Now $30 million divided by 1200 is $25,000 per kid. Just to give you a sense of perspective, if we got $30,000 per month, we would be able to help 85 kids per month in our own program. Doesn't that sound more cost-effective?

Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection needs your help URGENTLY!

2009-09-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

It's September 1st, which means school is starting in many areas of the country, including Chicago. We're so excited about starting a new year of tutoring and mentoring here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection as well. We have 85 students and 85 mentors already matched and volunteer and student orientations start next week. We also are getting the ball rolling on planning the November Tutor/Mentor Conference, which will be Thursday and Friday November 19th and 20th at Norris University Center at Northwestern University in Evanston.

With all the good work we're doing, we unfotunately are in a tough financial spot right now. We're beginning to feel the effects of the economic downturn of last year (non-profits are usually a year behind for-profits in how they're affected by the economy. You can read a couple of good articles about that mentioned on the Cabrini Fundraising blog.) If we don't get enough funding, there is a possibility we could go out of business by the end of the year, which means almost 100 kids would not have a safe place to go after school and will lose a relationship with an adult tutor/mentor, which will be devastating.

So what can you do? Well, if you had been intending to donate to Nick Infusino and me running the marathon for Cabrini Connections, we need your donations NOW and not in October. We also would prefer if you would write a check to us. (online donations are great, but we don't get the money until the end of this month) Make checks payable to "Cabrini Connections" and mail them to: Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642

We appreciate anything you can contribute, even if it's just $20. Also, tell all of your friends and family about our need for funds - we would appreciate any support we can get right now!

If any of you or anybody you know has any questions or concerns (or would like to volunteer! That would be awesome too!), contact me at nicolewhite.cabrini@gmail.com or 312-492-9614.

Thanks so much! We have faith that people will come through and help Cabrini Connections and other programs throughout the city start the best school year yet!

Thanks to everyone who has donated to our cause

2009-08-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. As you may know, my boyfriend, Nick Infusino, and I have been raising money for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection by running the Chicago Marathon on Sunday October 11th, 2009. So far we have raised $686.80 thanks to the generous support of friends, family and colleagues. Our goal is to raise AT LEAST $2000 to help at-risk youth succeed. If you feel compelled to donate to a great cause, there are two ways:

1) We have a FirstGiving Page, where you can donate online at:
http://www.firstgiving.com/nicolewhite3

2) You can also write out a a check payable to Cabrini Connections and mail it to:
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642

Thanks in advance for your donation to our cause! (And I'm doing my part by running 16 miles this weekend!)

Tutor/Mentor Conference Planning Committee

2009-08-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
The November 2009 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking
Conference is happening in less than three months, on Thursday and
Friday November 19th and 20th at Norris University Center at
Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.
In order for the conference to happen though, we need your help. We
are currently putting together a conference planning committee. We
need people to help with:
- Finding speakers and panelists for workshops and keynotes
- Fundraising and finding sponsors for the conference
- Marketing, public relations, and reaching out to the media
- Technology support for improving the website.
If you're interested in helping out with the conference, you can call
312-492-9614 or e-mail Nicole White at
nicolewhite.cabrini@gmail.com
We're hoping to have a meeting in two weeks (the week of
September 7th-11th) here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor
Connection.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Sincerely yours,
The Tutor/Mentor Connection

LINK Unlimited

2009-08-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

Today, I visited a program in the South Loop called LINK Unlimited. LINK Unlimited is a unique program in that they only serve high school students who go to private schools in Chicago. Students in the program are matched up with "sponsors," adults who not only act as mentors, but who also pledge to pay for the student's high school education.

Every fall, Link Unlimited goes around to elementary schools throughout Chicago and informs students and parents about its program. They also speak to the teachers and administrators of the school to find out which students have the potential, both academically and socially, to go to a selective high school and succeed. Students must not have below-average grades and test scores and their families must demonstrate a financial need to the extent that these students wouldn't be able to go to private school without the financial support from a LINK Unlimited sponsor. Ultimately the cost for private school is split three ways, between the sponsor, whatever financial aid the student gets from the school, and whatever is determined the student's family can pay.

Once students are accepted into the program, they are matched up with a sponsor who has similar interests. Since sponsors are required to demonstrate the capacity to support a student's private school tuition for four years, sponsors tend to be a bit older than volunteer tutor/mentors in other programs. 100% of the students in LINK Unlimited are African-American, but sponsors are of all races, exposing students to new people and experiences.

Once the student is admitted in the program after an application process that includes an interview with both the student and the parent (parents and guardians are considered an important part of the LINK Unlimited program, which is how it should be for all programs), students are required to meet with their sponsor twice a month and also to send notes of appreciate at least twice a year. Students whose grades are below average are required to meet with at tutor an hour and a half, twice a week and the LINK Unlimited Center off of State and Cermak. There are also activities where all of the students and their sponsors go on, sponsored by LINK Unlimited such as attending Bulls games and going on the Chicago Architectural Boat Tour.

LINK Unlimited does an especially good job of keeping in touch with their alumni. LINK Unlimited has an alumni association, very similar to a university's alumni association, where alumni are encouraged to keep in touch and continue to give back to the organization. A wonderful statistic is the fact that 10% of the sponsors at LINK Unlimited are alumni of the program. This is a great testament of the powerful impact that LINK Unlimited has on its students' lives.

Eleven-Year-Old Interviews President Obama about Education

2009-08-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

In my daily perusal of the news, I came across this video of eleven-year-old Damon Weaver of Pahokee, Florida interviewing President Barack Obama on what he's doing about improving America's education system, violence in communities with a high level of poverty, and whether President Obama can dunk a basketball. While I wish President Obama mentioned after-school programs such as tutoring and mentoring programs as a way of helping students in low-achieving schools succeed and stay away from violence, I do think that President Obama said some very important things. I also am extremely impressed with the questions that young Mr. Weaver asked President Obama and look forward to watching what he does in the future. Note, on Tuesday September 8th, President Obama will be giving a speech on the state of America's Education System and what the administration is going to do next to improve America's schools. Be sure to tune in, but first enjoy this great video:

Birthday Causes on Facebook

2009-08-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

For some reason the August-November seems to be the time when all my friends and loved ones have birthdays. That's good, because there's a great new(ish) feature on Facebook called "Birthday Causes," where people can donate to the cause of your choice in honor of your birthday.

Here's how it works: You should receive a message a couple of weeks before your birthday saying something like "Your birthday is coming up, would you like people to donate to your cause for your birthday." When you click "yes" and indicate which cause you would like donations to go to (Hint hint, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection is a Cause on Facebook). You then can indicate which friends this invitation to donate should go to and voila! Happy Birthday, someone has donated to your favorite cause for your birthday. I know at least a couple of my friends did that for me in lieu of presents, which was greatly appreciated.

Word of warning though, sometimes these cause invites show up in your spam or junk e-mail box (I know this because I found an invitation from a friend in AmeriCorps asking to donate to the organization that she's working with for her birthday). Maybe send out another message to everybody to check their junk or spam as well to make sure they get the invite.

Of course, even if it isn't your birthday, you should encourage people to donate to your cause.
For Cabrini Connections, you can donate online using PayPal or send a check made out to "Cabrini Connections" and mail it to:

Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642

Thanks!

Help Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection Start a New Year

2009-08-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I did two things that will help me accomplish my goal of running the Chicago Marathon for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. The first thing that I did was run 14 miles on Saturday morning as part of my training. The second thing I did was that I mailed out my first batch of donation letters for the Chicago Marathon, asking for support for Cabrini Connections and Tutor/Mentor Connection. Hopefully, friends and family will be compelled to support me as I run 26.2 miles for helping at-risk youth succeed.

The marathon isn't until Sunday October 11 and we need your help now. The school year is starting soon, which also means that tutoring and mentoring here at Cabrini Connections and elsewhere is starting soon too. We need your support in making our program and others succeed. Your donations can help in a variety of ways, including the very basic things of paying our rent and keeping the lights on.

You can donate to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection a couple of different ways:

1. You can donate online by using PayPal.
or
2. You can mail a check made out to "Cabrini Connections" to:
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 West Huron
First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642

There are a myriad of reasons to donate, but I don't think I could give the reasons any better than one of our own students, Savon Clark. Here are his Top 10 Reasons for Donating to Cabrini Connections.

Volunteer Recruitment and Retention

2009-08-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

As soon as August rolls around many tutoring and mentoring programs start preparing for a new year of school. That means checking back in with students and tutors, but also recruiting new students and volunteers. In my two (!) years here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, I have hosted roundtables, and coffeehouses, and panel discussions at various points of the year on the topic of volunteer recruitment and retention. I highly recommend visiting Tutor/Mentor Exchange, which discusses the best practices of a tutoring and mentoring organization, especially the section about volunteer recruitment.

How does an organization find new students and volunteers? There's no magic bullet, but there are several ways that have results. One is using websites such as volunteermatch.org, idealist.org, and womeoncall.org. Another is using your volunteers, as one program leader put it, as evangelists for your cause. Have them bring a friend to the orientation, or to a tutoring night, or to an event for your program. Another effective way is for them to have an informational meeting at their place of work where people can come on their lunch break to find out more. Also, if you're in Chicago, be sure that your program is listed in our Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, because we can dozens of phone calls every week from people who found our site when they googled "tutoring" or "mentoring" in "Chicago." Some of them become volunteers for Cabrini Connections, but many find that our tutoring schedule doesn't work for them, or that we're not in a convenient location for them. Then, it's my job to refer them to one of the over 25o programs throughout the city that could be a perfect match for them.

Once you have a volunteer, it's also important to train them properly. Make sure they know the rules and expectation of the program. Make sure the students and parents know the rules and expectations of the program. A good idea is to have veteran volunteers speak as well at these orientations about their experiences being a volunteer tutor/mentor for your organization. Try and find a good match with a student by having them include their interests and the student's interests on their respective application forms. Once the match is made, keep tabs on the tutor/mentor and student - do they seem to be doing work and communicating? How is their body language? Is the student on the computer and the volunteer on the blackberry? Or, are they looking at a college website and talking about possible career options? These are all things you need to be looking out for as a program leader. For more information about training people to be quality volunteers, please read Dan Bassill's most recent blogpost on "Preparing to be a Tutor or Mentor."

If a match doesn't seem to be working, don't keep the tutor/mentor and student together if you think their might be a better fit with another student and/or tutor/mentor. A happy kid and happy volunteer will mean that you will have them staying in the program until June and coming back the following year. Also, be sure to acknowledge your volunteers and your students - giving the matches that succed a special recognition at various times througout the year. For examples of this, I highly recommend reading our former Northwestern Public Interest Program Fellow, Chris Warren's student and volunteer profiles on his blog, Chrispip.

I also recommend having social events throughout the year, where the volunteers can mingle and have fun. In October, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection will be hosting it's annual Martini Madness, which is a great place for new and veteran volunteers, in addition to employees and friends of Cabrini Connections. This year it will be on Friday October 9th, again at the Store, 2002 N. Halsted on Halsted and Armitage. You can recreate this same kind of social for volunteer year-round. The point is that volunteering should be fun and rewarding and once you get your volunteers, you need to keep them.

Promoting first day of school attendance

2009-08-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

As the summer comes to a close (it's August already?!?), parents, kids, and teachers have their thoughts resting on going back to school. As I mentioned in my blog post about the Kanye West Foundation, the issue of students dropping out is as prevalent as ever, with 50% of CPS students dropping out before High School Graduation. Of course, the first step to not dropping out is actually attending the first day of school.

Motivating students to come to school and stay is never easy. That's why I was happy to hear that newly-minted Chicago bred music star, Jeremih of "Birthday Sex" fame was using the power of Twitter to help promote the first day of school. Now, I'll admit that the song Birthday Sex is misogynistic and promotes premarital sex. I also take the attitude that CPS superindtendant Ron Huberman takes when he's quoted in a Chicago Sun-Times Article, "“We don’t condone any behavior we think is not healthy for our students. . . . But, he’s a great role model for our kids. He graduated from high school. He went on to school for engineering. He’s staying in school. That’s the message. This is part of what will be a continuing strategy to reach kids the way they communicate with each other.”

Lyrics of "Birthday Sex" withstanding, Jeremih is a great role model. He graduated at 16 from Morgan Park High School, attended the University of Illinois to study engineering, before transferring to Columbia College-Chicago to study music. He is also using his fame in a positive way by reaching out to his 70,000 followers on Twitter. Therefore, I have to commend Jeremih for using his influence for good and hopefully students will follow his example by attending the first day of school and be compelled to graduate form high school and attend college, just like he did.

Securing Sponsors for your Event

2009-08-04T10:31:00.001-07:00

Today, I participate in a very interesting live chat about how to secure sponsors for events - such as conferences and galas. As the coordinator for the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, I'm very interested in really getting the conference off the ground with sponsorship for both the event and the advertising of the event.

The discussion, which was on the Chronicle of Philanthropy website, had individuals working in the non-profit field ask questions to experts on the topic of Tanya Baskin, vice president of corporate partnerships for the Special Olympics; David Hessekiel, founder of the Cause Marketing Forum; Chad Royal-Pascoe, managing director of national strategic alliances for the March of Dimes; Emily Taylor, a co-founder of SponsorPark; and Karen Hughes White, director of corporate relations for Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

A couple of important things that I learned included that developing a relationship sponsorship will most likely take 4-6 months (I need to get cracking for the November Conference), that having a connection to someone in the company that you're soliciting for sponsorship is key, and that you need to do your homework about how that company's goals are similar to your own in helping them make a decision about whether to sponsor you or not.

I asked a question about sponsorship for conferences and what their recommendations would be. Emily Taylor from Sponsor Park responded: "Whether it's a conference or any other kind of sponsorship, you still need to consider the audience, the benefits you can offer a sponsor, and I highly encourage you to offer tiered package options to distinguish different levels of sponsorship support - I don't recommed a la carte sponsorship for this type of event. Once you've considered your audience do your homework to find alignment and start making phone calls. According to IEG 55% of sponsorships come from cold calling. Agencies or connection resources are also a big help since they have established relationships"

It's good to know what companies prefer and that cold-calling works. In the next couple of weeks, I will be searching out companies whose mission is concurrent with the Tutor/Mentor Connection and hopefully they will be willing to sponsor our conference. If you have any suggestions as well about securing sponsors, please leave a comment. Thanks!

What kids think will end the violence here in Chicago

2009-08-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

This past Friday, July 31st, students from the Mikva Challenge's Education, Teen Health, and Youth Safety Council's held a press conference at the Joyce Foundation briefing the media, politicians, and other leaders in Chicago on the survey they conducted, asking 758 Chicago Public School's Students on their views on youth violence. Mikva Challenge is a wonderful organization that teaches kids about civic responsibility and guides them in becoming activists in their community.

As we all know, violence in Chicago is at the forefront of the news right now(recommended reading is Mark Brown's column about attending the press conference here and Mary Mitchell's column about the Secretary of Education and former Chicago Public School's Superintendant, Arne Duncan's reaction to another shooting of a CPS student who had graduated from Von Steuben High School, where many of our Cabrini Connections kids go to school as well, here ) and it appears that the issue of violence in the community is at the forefront of kids' minds as well. The results of the survey are jarring and you should read what they have to say. Of course, as someone who is concerned with how tutoring and mentoring organizations impact the communities the serve, I was pleased to see that students consider "adult mentoring" as one of the best strategies for reducing youth violence. Hopefully donors and potential donors will take it from the source - the kids that these mentors work with - and realize the importance that these mentors have in these kids lives and realize that adult mentoring is one of the many ways of combatting youth violence.

East Garfield Park Shootings - The Rest of the Story

2009-07-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

This morning, as I did my morning browse of the news, I was shocked and saddened to see that 15 people had been shot the night before throughout the city of Chicago. Last night was a beautiful evening in Chicago - a bit humid but not overly warm - and it saddens me to think that as I was enjoying a beautiful run along Lake Michigan, in other parts of my beloved city people are getting shot, some, possibly, as they were trying to enjoy the beautiful weather as well.

I was especially upset to see that a number of those who were shot last night were in East Garfield Park. Just last week, Bradley Troast and I visited a phenomenal program in that neighborhood, Breakthrough Urban Ministries. I can't help but think of the people who we walked and drove past as Bill Curry, the COO of the organization, who gave us a tour of the program and a bit of the neighborhood, and hope that they're okay. Or that possibly one of the people was who was shot, was a relative or a friend of one of the students who enthusiastically told us what they were doing in the program. It's hard for me to imagine that on the quiet, tree-lined street where Breakthrough Urban Ministries Children and Family Center is, where people sit on the stoops chatting and where well-kept bungalow houses with manicured gardens line the street, a mere two and a half blocks away seven people were wounded by a single gunman.

When people read the news all they will read about is people getting shot in one of Chicago's "bad neighborhood." When I read the news today, I thought of the wonderful people I met and a community that does not deserve this kind of violence. Breakthrough Urban Ministries is performing miracles in East Garfield park, but they can only do so much.

When I searched under "Chicago Community Area - East Garfield Park" in the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, I was a little shocked, but not completely surprised to see the lack of tutoring and mentoring programs in that neighborhood. There are two Chicago Park District After-School Homework Help programs, Altgeld and Homan Square Parks, two Boys and Girls Clubs, Cather and Martin Luther King, Jr. Clubs, and three programs that do not have websites, Agape Youth Victory Club, Bethany Brethren Community Center, and Fifth City/Introspect Tutoring Program. First Church of the Brethren and Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica both have websites but do not mention tutoring and mentoring programs on them.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection will do everything it can to support and create programs in East Garfield Park. We do not claim that having more tutoring and mentoring programs would have prevented those shootings last night. But maybe it would have done something in the way of giving a youth a safe place to be or to compel someone to not want to use a gun in a violent way.

The Kanye West Foundation - Combatting the Drop-Out Crisis

2009-07-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Last night, as I was winding down from a busy of weekend of marathon-training and neighborhood festivals, I was flipping through the channels and came across a concert with the world-renowned hip hop artist Kanye West. While I decided to stay with the concert because I enjoy his music, I was thrilled to realize that this concert was at the Chicago Theater and was exclusively for Chicago Public School students. You can view clips from the concert here.

Anyway, the concert was in conjunction with the Kanye West Foundation, which according to the Foundation's Website, "is to help combat the severe dropout problem in schools across the United States by partnering with community organizations to provide under-served youth access to music production programs that will enable them to unleash their creative ability and reach their full potential."

This is a wonderful and timely cause. In many public school systems, such as the Chicago Public Schools System, the drop-out rate for high school students can be as high as 50%. Many of these students are minorities, usually African-American or Latino Students. If you read my blog and Dan Bassill's blog, we have both written articles about the drop crisis. (For mine go here, for Dan's go here). What many studies show is that students who drop-out of high school are less likely to have a career, and more likely to end up pregnant at young age, addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, and in jail at some point.

An interesting article that explores the reasons why students drop out of high school and other aspects of the drop out crisis, that was published fairly recently, go to "The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Drop-Outs,"a study conducted by John B. Bridgeland, John DiIulio, Jr., and Karen Burke Morison and reported Civic Enterprises, and the Peter D. Hart Association for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One of the main reasons high school drop-outs give for dropping out is lack of interest in their schoolwork. With the inaugural program of the Kanye West Foundation, "Loop Dreams," where "hip hop as a vehicle to teach participants hands on music productions skills, expose them to hip hop dance and art, and teach them important soft skills like time management, communication, commitment, responsibility, and commitment," the Kanye West Foundation is on the right track to finding creative solutions to an extremely pressing issue.

Hopefully, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection will be able to work with the Kanye West Foundation in some capacity to help kids stay in school. However we end up collaborating, I want to comment Mr. West and his foundation for doing something innovative and concrete to help kids stay in school.

Breakthrough Urban Ministries

2009-07-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned in recent blogs, it's always inspiring visiting organizations that take a holistic approach to changing a community. That is, while it's nice to see tutoring and mentoring programs that serve the youth of communities that have a high percentage living in poverty, you also need to take into account about the other factors affecting the community as well. What about the child not having something eat at home? Create a food pantry. What if a child needs medical attention but doesn't have health insurance? Create a free clinic, etc.

This idea of a holistic approach to a community at-risk has been adopted by several programs that I have visited. One was Circle Urban Ministries in the Austin Community that I profiled here. Another outstanding example of this is Breakthrough Urban Ministries in East Garfield Park, which I visited yesterday with Bradley Troast, our new PIP fellow.

Bill Curry, the Chief Operating Office of Breakthrough Urban Ministries kindly gave us a tour of the organization. He and his wife, Marcie, who's the director of the Youth Program, helped found the Children and Family Services component of Breakthrough back in 2000. In fact, Bill and Marcie, and their three kids live in the East Garfield Park neighborhood and their kids go to school in the neighborhood and participate in the youth programming as well.

While we set out, of course, to see their summer youth program, we witnessed so much more. As Bradley and I entered the Center on West Carroll, we came in with people there for the soup kitchen, wanting to get breakfast. Mr. Curry also made a note that the downstairs of the center was a residence for women who have become homeless, either because of mental illness, drug addiction, or other factors. The Women's Center provides a variety of services, including free health care, drug and alcohol counseling, and treatment for mental illness, in addition to offering a safe place to sleep, eat, and shower. There's also an innovative program that Breakthrough runs that helps prostitutes get off the street and away from their profession. For the men, similar services are offered at the administrative center on N. St. Louis Ave, just a few blocks away.

Upstairs at the Center is the Youth and Family Center, where currently the Summer Studies Program is happening. There, students were creating art and learning about texture in the process, another group was learning about metaphors, and a third was outside doing gymnastics. We also learned that a fourth group of students was on a field trip. What was a great idea, I thought, was that high school students become a sort of student teacher and help out with the children. I was impressed with the level of maturity, patience, and kindness the high school students exhibited in dealing with the young children.

Ultimately the goal of summer studies at Breakthrough is to make sure that the students don't lag behind in their studies before they go back to school. In fact, one study that was conducted showed that students who participated in the Breakthrough Summer Studies Program gained 3 months in the reading level, those that didn't lost 3 months.

For specifics about all the different programs, in addition to the tutoring and mentoring program, that Breakthrough Urban Ministries offers, I encourage you to read Bradley's blog, since he gives a great synopsis. But, a great idea that Breakthrough has employed is the idea of having multiple tutor/mentors act as a support system to a child - somewhat in the idea of "It takes a village to raise a child." The idea is that you have several individuals work with a small group of children as tutors and mentors and let the relationships grow. If a tutor moves away because of graduating from college (a lot of volunteer tutor/mentors are college students from UIC, DePaul and other Chicago schools), or transfers jobs, gets married, has a baby, or has to leave Breakthrough for any other reason that is common for 20-30 something young professionals (which is another large group that tends to tutor/mentor at Breakthrough as well), then the child won't feel abandoned because they still have 4-5 other tutor/mentors looking out for them. This is an interesting idea and might be a method applied by other tutoring and mentoring organizations.

So to Bill, Marcie, and everybody else we met at Breakthrough Urban Ministries THANK YOU for the wonderful tour. What you do for the East Garfield Community needs to be reflected throughout the city and we hope to support you in any way possible in the future.

Nine people shot in Austin on Sunday, but what's the rest of the story?

2009-07-22T12:07:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I showed readers how to use our Interactive Program Locator and how to find the different maps in our Map Gallery. One of the criteria that you can use to search for types of maps, is by searching "Rest of the Story" maps, which takes stories in the news profiling poverty and violence and then maps the location profiled in the story, and where the tutoring and mentoring programs are in the area, in addition to schools, churches, businesses, and percentages of those living in poverty.

One of the recent stories we have profiled is Mary Mitchell's column in yesterday's Chicago Sun-Times , about how the Austin neighborhood in Chicago is number one for weapons-related crime and homicides. This article was written in the wake of nine people being shot in Austin last Sunday, including a nine-year-old girl and a fourteen-year-old boy.

Dan Bassill profiles the churches and businesses that are in Austin, that can collaborate with the tutoring and mentoring programs to make the neighborhood a safer place for kids. In this blog, however, let's take a closer look at the tutoring and mentoring programs in the Austin neighborhood.

According to the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, if you searched by "Chicago Community Area" and then under "Austin," you will see that there are 9 programs in the Austin Neighborhood. Almost half of these are Chicago Park District Homework Help Programs at Amundsen, Austin Town Hall, Columbus, Columbus, La Follette.

Circle Urban Ministries, was a program I visited at the end of June and I profiled that visit in this blog here. They actually have a variety programs that help the Austin Community be a better place and they're a great example of how a program that started in a church, has expanded and now offers everything from their wonderful mentoring program to a legal aid site to a free clinic.

Cluster Tutoring is another program that I am quite familiar with, since its director, Kathryn McCabe has sat on a variety of panels at past Tutor/Mentor Conferences. Cluster Tutoring is a great example of how a more affluent community, Oak Park, saw a need in a neighboring community, Austin, and created a tutoring program where residents of Oak Park and Riverside come to Austin to tutor students. As their website says "Cluster addresses the academic and social needs of the students and their families while providing an opportunity for members of the Oak Park/River Forest/Austin community to become involved in an important one-on-one volunteer mission."

Westside Holistic Family Services also offers a variety of programs to the Austin Community, including an after-school Teen REACH program. According to their website, "The mission of the Teen REACH Program is to expand the range of positive life choices and opportunities that can enable, empower and encourage youth to make those choices. It serves as a positive alternative for the children and youth from low-income and single-parent households during afterschool hours."

World Vision, is an international program, but their Chicago Office is in Austin. They run a program called the Youth Empowerment Project, which does community-based mentoring. Their website states that "World Vision’s youth development staff and other mentors creatively engage the talent, passion, energy, and unique gifts that young people bring to our world. Participants learn to identify issues that are important to them and their peers, and develop a presentation to share their concerns with congressional leaders."

Finally, theres the Austin YMCA, which has offered tutoring and mentoring in the past, but does not list tutoring and mentoring as a program that they run currently.

While there are many wonderful programs in Austin such as those listed above, the need is simply too great and there needs to be more support for these programs and more programs created to serve all the youth that live in Austin. Austin is the largest Chicago community area in terms of population and there are lot of youths who need a program to serve them.

How to use the T/MC Interactive Program Locator

2009-07-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, July 16th, the same gloriously sunny day that Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection was hosting its 14th annual Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Tournament, Chicago woke up to find out there had been 8 shootings the day before. Our GIS and Mapping Coordinator, Mike Trakan mapped where these shootings happened, and his map is our featured map on the homepage of our Tutor/Mentor Program Locator. You can also enlarge the map at the right to see where the shootings happened and the tutoring and mentoring programs, percentage of those living in poverty and the failing schools in those area.

One of the questions I get about these maps, especially the interactive ones, are "How do I use them?" It truly is a lot of information to wrap your head around. So, one of the new tools that you can access on our Tutor/Mentor Program Locator is "How to use the interactive T/MC map."

Taeho, an intern from the University of Michigan, who came to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection for a week in the early Spring as part of the Alternative Spring Breaks program. Taeho created a movie and a simplified breakdown of all the different components that go onto the Interactive Map: Cities, Boundaries (County, Community, Zip Code), Schools, Poverty, Tutoring and Mentoring Programs, and an Advanced Search Option.

By looking into each component of the interactive map, the concept of how many different factors go into making kids at-risk and what it takes to make them succeed becomes more apparent. You can then go into the asset map and find out about the banks, insurance agencies, pharmacies and other businesses that are located in these neighborhoods that can help tutoring and mentoring programs find dollars and volunteers. For a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the asset map, go here.

If you want to get leaders in government involved, you can find maps with a similar structure to the interactive maps, but showing all the different factors within the lines of an alderman's district, or a State Senator's district, or a U.S. Represenative's district. To find out how to use the government maps, go here.

Finally, like the map posted above, Mike creates maps of the neighborhoods where a child is shot or beaten, when that story makes it into the news. He will then show where the neighborhood's poverty lines, the failing schools, the tutoring and mentoring programs, and the businesses in that area. We call these maps the "Rest of the story" maps since there's much more to the story than what the media reports. To find out how to use the "Rest of the Story" maps, go here.

Hopefully, people will take an intensive look at these maps and begin to understand all the things we do and all the people we try to bring together to make a difference in these communities. Look around and if you have any ideas for a map, leave a comment.

The Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Tournament was a success!

2009-07-20T14:00:00.001-07:00

I also wanted to add a thank you to everyone who came out and played in the Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Tournament, or who came to the dinner and silent auction afterwards. It was a perfect day weather-wise and golf-wise and we sincerely appreciate everybody's help and participation to make our biggest fundraiser of the year happen. Read our program coordinator El Da'Sheon Nix's blog to find out more about how you can help out Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection even after our biggest fundraiser of the year.

Also, my colleague Mike Trakan, our GIS and Mapping Coordinator was interviewed on WLUW's "Outside the Loop" Radio Show about his maps. You can also here some of Mike's music in his other alias as the lead singer and guitar player for the band Trakan. You can listen to the interview and Mike's music streaming here.

Youth Mentoring Week in Australia

2009-07-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite parts of being the Tutor/Mentor Connection Research and Networking Coordinator is finding out how tutoring and mentoring programs collaborate in other cities, states and countries throughout the world, just as the Tutor/Mentor Connection does in Chicago. The concept of volunteers giving their time as tutors and mentors is very foreign in a lot of countries, but a country where this tradition is as strong as in the United States is in Australia.

This year, the last week in October, October 25-31st, Australia will be hosting a National Youth Mentoring Week. According to Youth Mentoring.au, basically the Tutor/Mentor Connection of Australia, Youth Mentoring Week is "a celebration throughout Australia of youth mentoring, and all its success, potential and opportunity." This is a wonderful idea, and Youth Mentoring encourages all mentoring programs throughout Australia to host an event, let the media know about a success story, or do something on their own. There are scheduled events already throughout Australia that can be found here.

Like the Tutor/Mentor Connection, Youth Mentoring.au also considers collaboration between programs. It even helps connect programs on their website, much like the Tutor/Mentor Connection tries to do through various ways such as the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.

In fact, the Tutor/Mentor Connection used to host a Tutor/Mentor Week as well. From 1994-1999, the Tutor/Mentor Connection collaborated with tutoring and mentoring programs throughout the city of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs to host a week where tutoring and mentoring was in the spotlight. The week culminated in the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference and the Sun-Times Judge Marovitz Lawyers Lend-a-Hand Benefit in November.

Another similar event that we still host, but that's not quite as big as it used to be is the Volunteer Recruitment Campaign. From 1999-2002, politicians such as Mayor Daley, athletes, local celebrities, and the media all lended their names and their publicity to back what tutoring and mentoring does to help youth succeed. There were article written in the local newspapers, libraries, bookstores, coffeeshops and many more sites had booths where people could sign up to be a volunteer tutor/mentor.

The reason why the Volunteer Recruitment Campaign in Chicago fell to the wayside was lack of funding for someone to help plan it. In my time here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, I have tried to resurrect the Volunteer Recruitment Campaign and the Tutor/Mentor Week with limited success. I'm trying again this year to gather leaders in the tutoring and mentoring community, but also in the legal, medical, religious, media, and business communities to help me get an event like this going again. However, I'm only one person. If you'd like to help with getting an event going in Chicago like the one that's happening in October in Australia, please leave a comment or call us at 312-492-9614. This is a great idea, and I think Chicago deserves to have an event as wonderful as the one in Australia.

Lawyers Lend-a-Hand My Hero Awards

2009-07-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day indeed! In addition to our Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Tournament, there is also the Sun-Times Judge Marovitz Lawyers Lend-a-Hand to Youth My Hero Awards Luncheon. Lawyers Lend-a-Hand is a wonderful example of how one type of profession (the legal profession) has taken it up on themselves to help at-risk youth succeed by honoring attorneys and judges who are tutors and mentors.

Lawyers Lend-a-Hand also gives out grants at the end of the year to tutoring and mentoring programs throughout the City of Chicago and the surrunding suburbs. Last year, $217,000 in grants were awarded to outstanding tutoring and mentoring programs including Cabrini Connections and Tutor/Mentor Connection. In fact, my role as the Tutor/Mentor Connection Research and Networking Coordinator is being funded by a very generous grant from Lawyers Lend-a-Hand, and for which I'm very grateful.

If you would like to support those in the legal community who have gone beyond the call of duty to help at-risk youth succeed, you can attend the My Hero Luncheon tomorrow, Thursday July 16th at the Standard Club, 320 S. Plymouth Court in Chicago. Tickets to the luncheon are $75 per person. If you're unable to attend the luncheon but feel passionate about helping those in the legal community help kids, then I encourage you to donate to Lawyers Lend-a-Hand here.

Addendum to yesterday's post about programs in Englewood

2009-07-15T08:26:00.001-07:00

I just realized, looking over the list of programs that I wrote about in Englewood, I neglected to mention the Chicago HOPES Maria Shelter, which is located in the heart of Englewood. Chicago HOPES stands for Heightening Opportunities and Potential for Success and is an initiative by Chicago Public Schools as part of their Homeless Education Program. The HOPES sites throughout the city offer tutoring and mentoring to homeless youth in the neighborhoods that surround them. You can read more about my visit to Chicago HOPES here.

The Map Gallery is up!

2009-07-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

This piece of news is a bit old, but it's new to this blog. While I was on vacation, the Tutor/Mentor Connection's new Map Gallery went live for all the world to see. If you're a loyal reader of this blog, you probably know that I have been working with Mike Trakan, who uses GIS technology to create maps showing different areas of Chicago such as state senator's or alderman's districts and where the tutoring and mentoring programs are, the percentages of those living in poverty, and where there are failing school in their district. Or he will create maps showing different businesses throughout the city such as CVS Pharmacy or CitiBank in relation to the same sort of things. If you want to read the story behind the blog, Mike keeps a very interesting and thought-provoking blog himself called Mapping for Justice. I encourage everyone to look at the map gallery and read Mike's blog and become better-informed about what tutoring and mentoring programs are out there, and where programs need to be created.

If, after looking at the Map Gallery and reading Mike's blog makes you want to do something about helping at-risk youth succeed, there are many things you can do. Of course, we encourage you to sign up to be a volunteer either at Cabrini Connections or by looking through the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and finding a program near your work or home. You can also donate online using PayPal.

If you're wanting to do something a little more active to help kids, you can sign up to play in our Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Tournam ent at Highland Park Country Club. TODAY, Wednesday July 15th is the last day to sign up to play in the tournament, which is tomorrow, Thursday July 16th. If you're not a golfer (I'm not one either) but enjoy eating and drinking (I know I do!), then you should come to our dinner and silent auction, which will be at 6pm at the Highland Park Country Clubhouse. There are lots of great prizes to bid on including a basketball signed by NBA stars and footballs signed by members of the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers and by members of the New York Jets. Read more about the great prizes to bid on in my colleague, El Da'Sheon Nix's blog.

Tutoring and Mentoring Programs in Englewood

2009-07-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote about an article published in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday about living in Englewood neighborhood of Chicago and the difficulty kids face during the summer there. Today, as a follow-up, I'll write about the programs offered in the neighborhood.

Englewood is divided into two Chicago neighborhoods, Englewood and West Englewood, and you can search for programs in the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator by either searching under Englewood and West Englewood under the "neighborhoods" criteria or under 60621 and 60637 under the zip code criteria.

In total there are six tutoring and mentoring programs in West Englewood and five listed in Englewood. In Englewood, there are two Boys and Girls Clubs - Reed Club and Englewood Club and one Chicago Park District park that offers after-school homework help - Sherwood Park. Another one of the programs, Stagg Elementary Time-Dollar Institute Cross-Age Peer Tutoring has been shut down recently. Finally, there is 21st Century Community Learning Center - Family Focus of Englewood. This initiative is part of a larger organization that offers mental health support services in a variety of ways to the Englewood Community. The 21st Century Community Learning Center, according to its website, offers "after-school activities at Bond, Reed and Sherwood Elementary Schools and Woods Academy, a Chicago community school."

Of the programs listed in West Englewood, there are two Chicago Park District Parks that offer after-school homework help - Lindblom Park and Ogden Park. There's also the Academy of St. Benedict School, which offers after-school enrichment activities and tutoring to it's students.

Another program is the Englewood Family Center, Illinois Subsequent Pregnancy Program (ISPP), a program of the Children's Home and Aid Society, which offers mentoring and tutoring to young mother's as part of a constellation of support services to help the mother be a good parent to their baby and to prevent another pregnancy. They also offer a Community Schools Program, which, according to their website "The Community Schools program includes physical and mental health services, performing arts and sports enrichment activities and academic support in a holistic program design. These services include tutoring, after-school activities and in-class groups on topics such as conflict resolution for children and behavior management classes for parents."

It is unclear whether West Englewood Youth and Teen Center - Reach Out and Touch still has a program since they have no website and have not responded to my e-mails. Finally, there's the Youth-Guidance program of the West Englewood Community, located at Harper High School. Youth Guidance also offers a Community Schools Program and a STRIVE Program that lends support services to wards of the state.

While this might seem like a lot of programs, it's not. Two programs are of questionable status at this time and many work with a specific population or have long waiting lists. Simply put, there are thousands of young people ages 6-18 living in the Englewood and West Englewood neighborhoods that could benefit from the services of a tutoring and/or mentoring program. The Tutor/Mentor Connection hopes that people will read the Chicago Tribune article profiled above and read this blog article and be compelled to start a program in the Englewood neighborhood. An interesting idea is the possibility of University of Chicag o students teaming up to start a program in Englewood, since the community is literally right next to Hyde Park.

If you're interested in starting a program in Englewood, or in another one of Chicago's neighborhoods stricken with high poverty and high levels of violence, I encourage you to leave a Comment on this post, but also to visit Tutor/Mentor Exchange, which has a wealth of resources for those wanting to start a tutoring and/or mentoring program. I also encourage you to contact me if you have a program in Englewood or West Englewood, or know of a program there so we can list them in our Tutor/Mentor Program Locator.

Why you should come to our golf tournament

2009-07-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune published an article about the difficulties that urban kids face during the summer. The article profiles four siblings who spend most summer days at the library, since that is one of the few safe places in their home neighborhood of Englewood to go during the summer.

If you visit Cabrini Connection s, Tutor/Mentor Connection's president and CEO, Dan Bassill's blog, you can read what he has to say about the article and how there are not enough tutoring and mentoring programs in the Englewood neighborhood. This is despite the fact that it's one of the main neighborhoods in Chicago in regards to poverty and violence, making the need for tutoring and mentoring programs for the kids that much greater.

If you search the interactive program locator, and search under "zip code" for 60621, the main zip code for the Englewood neighborhood, you'll see there are only four tutoring and mentoring programs in the neighborhood. Now, I must add, that when I talk about tutoring and mentoring programs in relation to the poverty and violence that occurs in the neighborhoods here in Chicago, I don't want to say that it's the single solution to these issues. There are too many factors going into why there is such high levels of poverty and violence in the neighborhood that tutoring and mentoring programs are only one piece of the puzzle in improving the situations in these neighborhoods. However, if you look at the interactive map that Dan Bassill created above, you can see the churches, hospitals, schools, and businesses that can collaborate to help make the Englewood neighborhood a safer place for children to be this summer and throughout the year.

This is one of the goals of the Tutor/Mentor Connection - to help new programs get off their feet and existing programs to continue to thrive and serve the community in neighborhoods such as Englewood. If more tutoring and mentoring programs were able to offer summer programming so kids would have a safe place to go, the kids profiled in the Tribune article wouldn't have to just rely on their Public Library to spend their summer days.

Unfortunately, as I'm contacting programs throughout the city, many programs' summer programming is being cut due to the crisis in the Illinois State Budget, or because funding has dried up from foundations or grants have not been renewed. Simply put, a lot less money is going out to tutoring and mentoring (and most social services programs in general). One of the first types of programs that tutoring and mentoring organizations cut is their summer programming. However, as many of us now know, summer is the time when kids have the most free time on their hands and where many are left unsupervised because parents and guardians have to work. There is a reason why we see the number of kids getting shot and killed rise during the summer.

So, what can you do to help? A fun way to help benefit tutoring and mentoring programs throughout the city of Chicago, is to come to our annual Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Tournamen t, which benefits our own tutoring and mentoring program, Cabrini Connections as well as tutoring and mentoring programs throughout the city of Chicago through the Tutor/Mentor Connection. This year, the golf tournament will be held this Thursday July 16th, 2009 at Highland Park Country Club. Find out more by visiting the golf tournament's website
and sign up to play. Also, if you're not a golfer, but like to eat and drink (and who doesn't!), you also can just come to the dinner and bid on silent auction items such as an autographed NY Jets Football and basketballs signed by basketball superstars such as Chicago-native Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat. I hope to see everyone there!

Back from Vacation!

2009-07-10T09:44:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone! I've just returned from a very relaxing vacation to the Pacific Northwest and am thrilled to be back! There are so many new and wonderful things to report, so I'll be posting quite a few short blog posts in the coming days.

But first things first, I'm sad to say that Chris Warren (photo at right, in the center) has ended his year as our Northwester n Public Interest Program Fellow for 2008-2009. Read his wonderful farewell blog post here. Chris has been a delight to work with this past year and we will miss his talent and enthusiasm here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

However, I am so excited we have a new Public Interest Program Fellow, who has joined our team. Bradley Troast (left) will be our PIP Fellow for 2009-2010. He demonstrated early on his interest in Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection by helping us secure Norris University Center at Northwestern University in Evanston for the November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, which will be held Thursday and Friday November 19th and 20th. However, that wasn't the only reason why we felt Bradley was the right fellow for us. He's an incredibly talented guy in his own right and we're delighted to have him on board. Check out Bradley's blog here.

Circle Urban Ministries

2009-06-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Chris Warren and I visited Dan Hogan and his mentoring program at Circle Urban Ministries in the Austin Neighborhood. Dan has been a great supporter of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the Tutor/Mentor Conference, and hosted a very popular workshop on using free technology to build your program's website. He also runs a fantastic mentoring program.

Circle Urban Ministries has served the Austin Community since the early 1970s in a variety of capacity. House in the complex on N. Central Ave., Circle Urban Ministries is the home of CATALYST Charter School, an After-School Program for kindergarten-8th graders, mostly students at Catalyst Charter School, the Circle Christian Development Corporation, which spearheads community revitalization projects, a Food Pantry and Depository, Rock Church, a Community Health Center, a Legal Aid Center, and of course the mentoring program. This all-encompassing commitment to the community in all aspects of helping a person is exactly what the Tutor/Mentor Connection would like to see replicated in high-poverty neighborhoods such as Austin.

The Mentoring Program started in 2001 and most of the students are 4th-8th graders at CATALYST Charter School. Students meet once a week at Circle Urban Ministries with their mentor and then four hours a week during school vacations. The site benefits from an extensive number of rooms where mentors and their students can interact with one another without anyone bothering them. When we were there we saw one pair playing Wii Boxing, another baking cookies in the kitchen, and another playing hang man in the boardroom. While the mentoring program emphasizes the mentoring relationship rather than a tutoring/academic relationship, the student and their mentor are encouraged to set one academic goal for the year and to work on that goal throughout the year with their mentor.

Circle Urban Ministries Mentoring Program also has benefited with networking with the Churches in Austin and Oak Park. Many of the mentors are members of these churches and even some parents of some of the mentees have donated their own time to help other students in the program succeed. What's great is that both CATALYST school is growing (as shown by the top picture, which was taken in the new library being constructed) and so is Circle Urban. Hopefully they are able to find more mentors for the many students who need their guidance and that Circle Urban can expand its services and help even more people in the Austin Community and beyond.

Thanks so much to Dan Hogan for a great tour of the facilities and for all his help with the conferences!

How do we get funding? How do we track success?

2009-06-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

As the summer begins and tutoring and mentoring programs begin summer programs to help kids stay safe and engaged, the need for funding becomes more and more apparent. Many programs at different organization are being cut, due to the Illinois State Budget Crisis, or to the stop in funding from a foundation or corporation. One of the first things that usually gets cut is summer programming since it only affects kids three months out of the year rather than nine months. But it's during the summer months that students need safe places to go more than ever. It's not a mere coincidence that summertime is the time where the crime rate skyrockets in urban areas. We can only see the recent tragedy of a third grader being gunned down while washing her dog and be reminded that their needs to be more places for her and those who killed her to go during the summer months. You can read Dan Basill's article here about how there are no tutoring and mentoring programs offered in her neighborhood.

Anyway, in an ongoing effort by the Tutor/Mentor Connection to support and promote tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago, we are currently in the process of contacting programs about what ways they track success in their programs. Since a lot of funding comes from the demonstration of numbers, both positive and negative, we thought it would be a good idea to touch base with programs, see how they are doing right now in this tough economy, and find out what ways they keep track of their program.

Of course, we also need to set an example ourselves in terms of evaluating our program. One of the ways we track what we do qualitatively is OHATS, which stands for Organization and History Tracking System. What it does is that anybody who works with the Tutor/Mentor Connection in any capacity can create a profile and record important meetings, events, and developments that they have participated in that benefits the Tutor/Mentor Connection. What makes it an effective tool for tracking qualitative success is that anybody who is curious about what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has done, or is doing, can simply log in under username: Guest, password: Visitor and see the most recent activity recorded by those who work with Tutor/Mentor Connection in some capacity. I invite anyone who is interested in seeing what we're doing to login and browse around. There are entries that date back to the early 2000's, when the tracking system was first developed. It's a great way to see what we've done at Tutor/Mentor Connection, how far we've come, and where we are going.

Also, if you'd like to read more about the theory behind OHATS, I invite you to check out some great articles on Tutor/Mentor Exchange.

Putting the FUN in FUNdraising

2009-06-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you all know, one of the foremost thoughts on everybody's mind in the non-profit sector is raising money in light of the downturn in the economy. Programs all over are trying to find new and creative ways to find dollars so they can continue the good work that they're doing. Here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection we're using every avenue we can to make sure the lights stay on and the kids can continue to have a place to come to. You can read about one creative way in which we're raising money in Chris's blog.

I'm trying to do my part, and having fun in the process, by running the Chicago Marathon for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. Right now, my boyfriend (who's also running the Chicago Marathon for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection) and I are in the process of compiling a list of people we know who would donate and are going to send out an e-mail or a letter to everyone on that list. I also created a FirstGiving page, where you can donate to Cabrini Connections directly through the site. Finally, stay tuned for updates about my fundraising efforts because down the road, we're planning on creating shirts with artwork done by the Cabrini Connections Art Club and selling them on CafePress. We're also going to make dry-wick shirts with the Art Club art and wear them during the marathon to raise visibility for our organizations, and also to show off what amazing artists our kids are.

If you're running in the Chicago Marathon, or another race and would like to help out Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, please leave a comment and I'll get in touch with you and get you involved in our effort!

Making Media Connections Conference

2009-06-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, I had the great privilege of attending Community Media Workshop's Making Media Connections Conference. I had a great time, learned a lot, and networked a lot - what more could you have asked for?

The conference was held at Columbia College of Chicago and there was a great cross-section of people from what they referred to at the conference as "The Old Media" such as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune to the new media, such as bloggers (the conference was actually live-blogged the entire day!) to people who worked at not for profits such as myself who wanted to find out more about how we can benefit from both.

The morning keynote was done by Monica Davies, who is the chief editor of their Chicago Bureau. Ms. Davies was an excellent speaker and touched not only on how the old media is going to survive in the age of twitter and facebook, but also how non-profits can be better able to get their stories into the news - which is mainly what I took from her talk. The thing that resonated with me the most was her point that in these tough economic times, newspapers want to hear about how people are doing - both the good and the bed. She said newspapers and other media are especially interested in how people are finding creative ways to weather the recession and if non-profits were doing creative and interesting things to survive, then the media would be receptive to those stories in addition to the bad stories about people losing their jobs and programs shutting down due to lack of funds.

The first workshop I attended was "Words on the Web" which talked about e-newsletters and blogging mainly. Since Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection is pretty up-to-date with newsletters and blogs, I realized that I already knew a lot about what they were talking about. However, an interesting tidbit that I found out was about a website called the Windy Citizen, where people can post interesting news stories including stories they've written themselves such as on their blog. Then, the other people who read their story on the site can rank the story based on how interesting they think the story is and if the story is highly ranked it will appear on the front page of the website.

The next workshop I attended was "Cause Marketing" where corporations (represented by Dominick's), PR Firms, and the media talked about about how you can partner with them to get dollars and free advertising. I learned a lot about how important it is when applying for funding from a corporation to make sure that you know what's in their mission statement and how that relates to who they fund. They also said that in asking for donations, you should be able to tell what you do and why they should fund you in the length of a tweet. Of course you're going to have to back that information up later with personal stories and data, but if you want to get your foot in the door initially you have to be concise and succinct in describing your progam and what they do.

The first afternoon workshop was all about Funding your Communications Department. The big thing they talked about was crafting a communications plan so that when you apply for funding for a communications person they will know what resources you have and resources you need. If you have a good, clear plan about how you will use the funding for using media for your organization than that's the best way to get funding for communications.

The final workshop was actually where we were all split into 3 groups and had a roundtable discussion from someone who represents the new media - in my case her name was Elizabeth Vassollo who is a community reporter for Trib Local, which is a newspaper helped by articles and stories found and written by the citizens of the communities they live in - and someone who uses the new media in their non-profit organization - Aaron Thurmond, who works for the Court Theater and who writes his own blog on arts management. I was especially interested in hearing Aaron's thoughts on building an audience for your blog. His recommendation was pretty simple - read other people's blogs who write about similar things that you do, link to their articles, comment on their posts. People will then see your stories as well and your name will be out there as one they recognize.

We also had the tables turned on us in the discussion and were asked about a success or failure we have had using either new or old media. I told the story of how I wrote about the need for finding a space for our November 2008 conference so I wrote about that on this blog. I then linked that article on my gchat, facebook, etc. An acquaintance (now a good friend!), who works at the Field Museum read that story on my blog and pointed me to the right people so that we could secure the Field Museum for our November Conference.

Overall, I had a blast at the Making Media Connections conference and hope to attend more events held by the Community Media Workshop. Even though I'm not the Media or PR Coordinator, I believe we are living in a age where we all can share our stories and it's important for all of us to know the ways we can better share our stories.

Charitable Giving Down - But the Need is Still There!

2009-06-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine who works for an arts non-profit in New York City posted this New York Times Article about how charitable giving was down last year. This is not surprising with the downturn in the economy. However, this year, 2009, is probably going to be even worse since charitable giving seems to reflect the economy in the current year.

So what does that mean for organizations such ourselves and others? We're going to have to work that much harder to make sure the lights stay on, the rent is paid, and that the students we serve have a safe place to come through the summer and into the coming school year. Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Conn ection just held two amazing events. The first, the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, which had over 120 people who work with youth from places as varied as Mississippi, Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, Arizona, and of course Chicago and the rest of Illinois come together to learn and network. The other one was our year-end dinner, which hosted over 200 students, their families, volunteers, and alumni. These two events were truly a celebration and we hope that the people who attended these events are compelled to help our organization and other organizations like ours out in the coming months.

So what can you do? Even a donation of $20 can contribute to paying the rent or keeping the lights on here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. Also, keep abreast of future events that we are hosting. Our Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Tournament is going to be held Thursday July 16th at Highland Park Country Club. You can put together a group of yourself and three other friends and play for $700 if you register on the website before June 15th (after June 15th it's $800). If you can't get a group together, but still want to play, it's $175 for a round of golf. And, if you don't golf but want to help kids succeed, you either sponsor a hole for $330 (even more cost-effective - you can sponsor a hole with a group of friends, splitting the cost!), donate an item for our silent auction, or just come to the dinner that evening!

I also hope to keep everyone updated about fundraising events held by other programs as well in the coming months. In times like these we have to stay optimistic and positive about funding, but we also need to be proactive. If you want to help out with fundraising and grant-writing, leave a comment and we'll get back to you. Thanks everybody!

We're on Twitter!

2009-06-10T07:05:00.001-07:00

Become a follower of tutormentorteam! Woo hoo!

People's Comments about the May 2009 Tutor/Mentor Conference

2009-06-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

Every Tutor/Mentor conference, we give out a survey for people to fill out about what they thought of the conference. Usually, we try and take note of people's comments calling for improvements as well as the comments that are more positive. Of course, we use the positive comments for any marketing we do for the next conference.

Anyway, I have yet to look at the evaluation forms from this May's conference, but I have received several e-mails in my inbox over the weekend from participants telling me what a great time they had:

From a first-time attendee: "I learned a lot and had a great time. Excellent job!"

From a panelist: "I just wanted to thank you for the invitation to present. [Your organization did] a masterful job coordinating the event. "

From an attendee, who came all the way from Arizona for the conference: "I just wanted to write and thank you for all your work and preparation for the Tutor Mentor Conference. We had a great time and were able to glean much from the more experienced programs."

Anyway, hopefully there will be more positive comments once we get our evaluation forms back. Still, it's good to know that people enjoyed the conference so much, they were compelled to e-mail us!

The May 2009 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference

2009-06-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

This May 2009 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference marked our 31st conference and our 15th year of doing conferences. For me, it was my third May Conference and my fifth conference overall.

Every conference has been different - my first May Conference was in 2007 (photo at right), just after I had been hired on at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. I'm so glad that I went to the conference because I learned so much in those two days and met people from other programs at that conference, that I still collaborate with today. I was just beginning to grasp the concept of what tutoring and mentoring was and what the conference was all about and everything was new and overwhelming for me.

The November 2007 Conference (photo at left) was my first conference as an actual employee at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. I was given the task of leading a panel about volunteer recruitment and was so nervous. Fortunately, Alex Cornwell of Chicago Lights at Fourth Presbyterian Church and Erin McPartlin of Cabrini-Green Tutoring were kind enough to serve on the panel and share their wisdom and expertise. We had a really good discussion in that panel and I made a lot of great connections with people who I had not worked with before.

The first conference that I was mostly in charge of planning was the May 2008 Conference (photo below).I remember how stressed I was going in to that conference. The main thing I learned was that no matter what technological or logistical difficulties there were, people still were having a great time learning and networking.

The November 2008 Conference (photo below) was significant in that I learned the power of this blog. Because my friend Julie Nygaard, who works at the Field Museum, reads this blog, she helped me through the necessary steps to secure the Field Museum as our site for the November Conference. I also learned how to bring people together in panels showcasing their strengths and knowledge, because we only had one day to do the conference and we wanted to expose participants to a wide range of views and experiences from different programs.

Finally, there was the May 2009 Conference (photo below). Overall, I'd say this was my favorite conference by far. There was a wonderful positive energy that flowed through the conference, despite the background of a troubled economy. I had more people come up to me and tell me what a great time they were having, how much they were enjoying the speakers and workshops, and how grateful they were that there is a conference like this so people can come together and work together to help at-risk youth succeed.

If you catch a theme about what my thoughts were coming out of all five of the conferences that I attended, it probably is something along the lines of building networks of people who you can collaborate with in the future. In a nutshell, that's what I think the conference is all about. If you go to the Tutor/Mentor Exchange, you can read articles about all kinds of issues relating to starting and maintaining a quality tutoring and mentoring program. One of the many sections in the site relates to collaboration and capacity building, which is what the conference is all about. There you can read about "building networks of purpose," which I think is one of the major accomplishments that everybody who attends the conference comes out of the conference with. Especially in tough economic times like these, people needs a strong network to rely on, to learn from, to grow with, and to give back to themselves. I hope that everybody who attended the May Conference felt that their network of purpose grew and strengthened and that they felt energized and hopeful about their programs going into the summer.

I can't wait for the November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, which will be held Thursday and Friday November 19th and 20th at Norris University Center at Northwestern University, in Evanston, IL. Even though that's six months away, planning and collaborating is starting now. If you would like to help out with the November Conference, please leave a comment on this post and I'll contact you about what you can do to make the November Conference a success!

Come to the Cabrini Connections Year-End Dinner!

2009-06-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

As the Tutor/Mentor Connection Research and Networking Coordinator, I reach out to other tutoring and mentoring programs and find out more about them - what they're doing right and where they can improve. However, one of the things I miss about my time as the Assistant Program Coordinator, during my Northwestern Public Interest Program Fellowship is interacting with our Cabrini Connections kids. That's why I love supervising the art club, and events such as our Year-End Dinner.

This Thursday June 4th, you too can meet our amazing Cabrini Connections kids at our Year-End Dinner. It's from 6-8pm at Cornerstone Community Center, 1111 N. Wells, Chicago, IL. At the year-end dinner, we will be showing a video about what Cabrini Connections is all about. The video was made by our Student Advisory Council and includes interviews with Dan Bassill, our President and CEO, Cabrini Connections alumni, Cabrini-Green community members, and longtime volunteers. Enjoy!

Another great Tutor/Mentor Conference

2009-06-01T12:59:00.000-07:00

It's June 1st, which means the May 2009 Tutor/Mentor Conference has come and gone. Overall, I'd say it was a great success, with many people commenting on what a good time they were having, what great connections they were making, and how helpful and interesting the workshop and speakers are. Our three new interns from South Korea took photos during the concert, which are shown below in the slide show. Enjoy!

Find more photos like this on Tutor/Mentor Connection

Tutor/Mentor Conference is TOMORROW

2009-05-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone! TOMORROW, Thursday May 28th is the first day of the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. It's going to be held at Northwestern School of Law, 375 E. Chicago Ave. Registration is from 8-9am and there will be breakfast available in the lobby beforehand.

You can still register for the conference and get the early registration fee of $60 for one day, $100 for two days. If you come in tomorrow without registering, the price is $75, but we are giving scholarships to people in need because we want as many people as possible come to the conference. Even if you can come for a half-day, or just lunchtime, it's still worth it to come!

It's going to be a great time! Tomorrow, there will be workshops on volunteer recruitment, student recruitment, fundraising, grant-writing, and you will also hear from the owner of the Hyde Park Hair Salon, the Official Barbershop of President Barack Obama.

We hope to see you tomorrow at the conference.

Chicago Youth Centers - Mentoring at Price School

2009-05-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

In my travels throughout the city, in order to visit tutoring and mentoring programs, I have visited Evanston, the Near North Side, Avondale, the Loop, Bucktown, Lincoln Park, Rogers Park, Pilsen, North Lawndale, Wicker Park, West Town, Humboldt Park, and the Near West Side. These neighborhoods compromise parts of the North, Northwest, and West Side neighborhoods. In evaluating where I had visited, I realized I had seriously been neglecting visiting programs on the South Side. This was a thing that needed to be remedied - not just because it would expand the scope of my visits, but also because it would shift my focus to an area that has high levels of poverty and is in great need of more tutoring and mentoring programs.

Fortunately, in my efforts to reach out to other tutoring and mentoring programs to come to the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, I heard back from Christy Beigh-Byrne, the Director of Mentor and Volunteer Services at Chicago Youth Centers-Elliott Donnelly Center. She invited me to visit their school-based mentoring program at Price Elementary School in Bronzeville.

Chicago Youth Centers operates a variety of programs throughout the city. Chris Warren and I had already visited ABC Polk Brothers Center in North Lawndale, where they have a variety of programs. Elliott Donnelly Center, which is located in Bronzeville as well, has a variety of programs that operate out of their center on South Michigan Ave., but also has a mentoring program run out of Price Elementary School.

Chicago Youth Centers teams up with CPS high schools and Chicago-area universities in order to find mentors, who are able to come in during the after-school hours of 3-4:15 in order to mentor the students. I spoke to mentors who went to UIC and Northesastern Illinois, and both of them were very enthusiastic about working with their students. For this program, mentors means more tutor-mentors in a similar model to the one we use here at Cabrini Connections. Fourth-Sixth Grade students go around to different stations with their tutor/mentors: spelling, reflection, homework help, and math. At the end of the session, students gather in a circle and discuss what went well in the session and what needs to be worked on. I was really impressed with how self-reflective all the students were, knowing what their weaknesses were but also knowing to celebrate their strengths.

While both the students and mentors told Chris and me that they were having an "off day," Chris and I were very impressed with the level of dedication of the mentors and the students. Our only thought would be to extend the mentoring session for another hour simply so the students and tutors have more time together. Thanks to Christy for inviting us down to Bronzeville!

Community Building Tutors and Making the Career Change from the For-Profit Sector to the Non-Profit

2009-05-08T07:34:00.001-07:00

This past Tuesday, I ventured out to Fosco Park, near the University of Illiniois at Chicago campus, in the Near-West Side neig hborhood, to visit the new Community Building Tutors program there. Community Building Tutors is a non-profit founded and run by young professionals that trains high schoolers to be tutors to the elementary schoolers in their community. The hope is that these high schoolers, in taking an interest in helping those younger than themselves, will begin to see themselves as leaders in their communities and to take pride in where they come from.

There are three sites currently offering tutoring through Community Building Tutors: Fosco Park, Chase Park up in Ravenswood, and Willye White Park up in Rogers Park. Holstein Park in Bucktown, has also been a site in the past, and will be a site for the 2009-2010 school year as well. Fosco Park is the newest site, having just started three weeks ago. Even though the students in the program are relatively new to a structured tutoring program, they already seemed very enthusiastic, eager to learn, and excited to work with their tutors. As mentioned before, at the other programs, high schoolers tutor the elementary school students. However, the program at Fosco Park is still trying to recruit high school students to be tutors. For now, the program has had to rely on friends of Bart Phillips, the founder and President of the Board of Community Building Tutors and UIC students.

Which brings me to the next topic - talking about one of the workshops that we are going to offer at the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference. Bart Phillips, and other Community Building Tutors board members spoke at the last May conference (shown in the photos) about their program. This year, on Thursday May 28th, from 1:45-3:00pm, Bart Phillips is going to talk about the topic of transitioning from working in the for-profit world, in the field of medical research, to running his own tutoring program. This is a very timely topic, with the tough economic climate, as many professionals have had to re-evaluate their career choices. Hopefully, Bart's story and wisdom will be of help and inspiration to everyone who comes to the conference.

Thanks to Bart, his dedicated tutors, his enthusiastic students for making me feel welcome at Fosco Park and letting me win in a very heated game of Uno at the end!

The Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference is in four weeks!

2009-05-04T15:57:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone! My apologies for not having updated the blog last week. What I was doing last week was trying to reach out to my networks to increase attendance for the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference - which is in less than FOUR WEEKS.

Just to remind everybody - the conference will be held Thursday and Friday May 28th and 29th at Northwestern School of Law, 375 E. Chicago Ave. Registration will be from 8-9am on Thursday and 8-8:45am on Friday. Breakfast will also be provided during that time. Admission to the conference is $60 for one day, $100 for both days, and $75 for walk-ins. You can register for the conference here.

If you would like to present a workshop, you can submit a workshop presenter's form here.

We already have some great workshops planned. Over the next couple of weeks I will highlight the different workshops that we have planned and let you know a little about the presenters and their organization. Stay tuned for that and get excited about the conference!

Chicago Youth Programs - Cabrini-Green Youth Program

2009-04-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about visiting other tutoring and mentoring programs is seeing the wide variety of sites, populations of students, and populations of volunteers. It's also great knowing what other programs serve the same population you serve. I had already visited Cabrini-Green Tutoring, Chicago Lights at Fourth Presbyterian, so I was so happy when I got in touch with the Cabrini-Green Youth Program of Chicago Youth Programs and got to finally visit them on Wednesday night.

Chicago Youth Programs has three locations: the Cabrini-Green Program hosted at Northwestern School of Law and Feinberg School of Medicine just off of East Chicago Avenue, the Washington Park Youth Program, which is hosted at Chicago Youth Programs headquarters on South Prairie Avenue, and the Uptown Youth Program hosted at Loyola University, just off of North Sheridan Road. Chicago Youth Programs was actually started by Northwestern University Medical students who felt their skills and knowledge could serve the community in ways beyond medicine. Seeing a great need just down the road in the Cabrini-Green housing projects, these medical students became tutors and mentors to these students. This tradition of law and medical students has continued with the majority of the tutor/mentors for the Cabrini-Green program being from Northwestern, for the Washington Park Program being from University of Chicago, and the majority for the Uptown program being from Loyola.

What has happened in terms of volunteer recruitment is a great tradition of continuity. The reality is that med and law students can only tutor for two to three years maximum. Therefore, when these students are no longer able to be tutors because they are graduating or they don't have enough time anymore, they take it upon themselves to recruit the new "class" of tutor/mentors through e-mail blasts, flyers, and much more. I must add, however, that being a medical or law student is a very busy existence, but many of the tutor/mentors I visited with spoke of their dedication at at least showing up once a week for an hour and a half. Seriously, other people don't have an excuse if these amazing tutor/mentors don't.

The idea of continuity also is prevalent in the youth programs themselves. Students can start at the age of 3 years old with the "Read to me" program, where they work on phonics and basic reading skills, and the PREP program, where parents come with their children and read to them and learn parenting skills. When students reach the first grade they continue with the tutoring program, where they get one-on-one homework help. Finally, there's the Higher Education Program, where in addition to homework help, there's an emphasis on college admission, testing, and job preparation. There are also exclusively mentoring programs at Washington Park and Uptown, and a health service program at Washington Park.

I was extremely impressed with all of their students and their tutor/mentors that I met at the Cabrini-Green Youth Program. In addition to the volunteers who were in the midst of med and law school exams still coming to tutoring, there was the kindergartner who was reading the words "about" and "lunch" out loud to me and the junior in high school who had been in the program since he was three years old and who had been with his tutor/mentor for eleven years.

Chicago Youth Programs not only does a great job with continuity, but also of evaluating their success. You can view some metrics of how they evaluate how their program is doing here.

I want to thank Sarah Hardin, who's the coordinator of the higher education program for showing me around and answering my questions, and Herman Verner III, the coordinator of the Cabrini-Green Youth Program, who took the time out of his very hectic evening (it was the last night of tutoring) to talk to me as well. I hope to see both of you at the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference!

Wicker Park Learning Center

2009-04-24T08:10:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday, Chris Warren and I made our way up to the Avondale neighborhood to visit Wicker Park Learning Center. Kathy Anderson (pictured left, speaking at our November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference at the Field Museum) has been at the helm of this tutoring and mentoring program for about 20 years and while the location has changed (Wicker Park Learning Center was once in Wicker Park, but has been located in Avondale for the past 15 years), the dedication to helping individuals from kindergarten through adulthood has not.

Wicker Park Learning Center actually employs paid tutors, but is free of charge to the people it tutors. As I mentioned earlier, they are headquartered in Avondale, at the Concordia Center,
where homework help is offered from 3-6pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and 3-8pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A good majority of the students who come for homework help at the center at 3300 N. Whipple, live in the neighborhood and go to the school just down the street. However, Wicker Park Learning Center is willing to have their tutors go to other neighborhoods if students need a tutor and are unable to travel to Avondale. In fact, students can meet with tutors from Wicker Park Learning Center at their homes, at libraries, community centers, and at their schools. Overall, about 15 kids come to the center on N. Whipple, 30 students meet with tutors at Namaste Charter School on the South Side, 5 kids meet at a Chicago-area Catholic School, 10 students meet at park district sites, and then there are those whose tutors come to their homes or local libraries.

Whenever Chris and I visit programs, we always ask them what their greatest challenges are. With these tough economic times, the issue of funding always comes up. Normally ever summer, Wicker Park Learning Center hosts a camp where students have a safe place to go during the summer, while their parents work. However, they are unsure if they will be able to offer the comprehensive recreation and supplementary tutoring program this summer as they did before.

Ms. Anderson also says that she would like to recruit volunteers to actually do some of the tutoring as well. We gave her some ideas of using websites such as Idealist and Volunteer Match
and possibly working with volunteer student groups at nearby universities such as Northeastern Illinois and North Park University. This is why we go out and visit these programs - to find out more about them, but to also see if they need help with anything.

Thank you Kathy Anderson for sitting down and talking to us about Wicker Park Learning Center. We can't wait to hear your ideas about student recruitment on the panel at the May Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.

Family Matters

2009-04-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, on a beautiful Spring Day, Chris Warren and I visited Family Matters, located just north of Howard St, near the Evanston-Chicago border. We had a wonderful conversation with Jennifer Bricker and Devon Lovell, who are in charge of the tutoring program at Family Matters about all the wonderful programs Family Matters offers it's diverse community. What we didn't expect was that we would get to visit a greenhouse that the program helps maintain for Gale School, the only school in the Chicago Public Schools system that has a greenhouse.

Family Matters has been serving the "North of Howard" neighborhood for over 20 years. It's mission centers around empowering the members of its community to become leaders and be involved in the community. This spirit of empowering the people it serves is a central part of all of its youth programs especially. The newest program, and the program that Jennifer and Devon spoke about the most was the TIGRO program, which stands for Third Graders Reaching Objectives. This program is for Third Graders at Gale School, where they come in after-school and meet one-on-one with their tutor/mentors. There are only 10 students in the program, and many of them are deemed at-risk by the school. What's truly wonderful and unique about the program is that the students have the full use of the greenhouse at the school learning about nutrition, sustainability, environmental awareness, and botany - in addition to their regular homework help. Many of the tutors come from Loyola University and the ones I talked to were extremely dedicated and enthusiastic about the program.

There is also the regular evening tutoring program for students in grades 1-12 that is Monday through Thursday 6:30-8pm, where students can get help with their homework one-on-one with their tutors. Yet another program that Family Matters offers is the reading tutoring program for students with learning disabilities.

Many of the students at Family Matters are in several of the programs offered. For those in kindergarten-6th grade there is the Family Connections Program, which is an after-school program which includes a leadership corps for students to learn the principles of leadership. Parents are heavily involved in this program and are encouraged to come to monthly parent meetings so that they can have a say in the direction of the program.

Hopefully the students who are in the Family Connections Program will continue on into the Teen Girls or Teen Boys groups. Teen Girls and Teen Boys emphasize the idea of shared leadership. For the Teen Girls, activities include learning about community activisim, learning how to make jewelry, making documentaries on domestic violence, and learning African dance. The middle school and high school boys meet twice a week for dinner and have done activities such as African drumming. An especially novel idea is that the students do their own grant-writing, taking ownership of supporting the program that serves them.

I must say I wish I could've stayed longer at the greenhouse, helping with the tending of the plants, or reading in the amazing library in the cozy two-flat building that houses Family Matters. I had a wonderful time learning about this inspiring program and I especially appreciate the time that Devon and Jennifer took out of their busy schedules to explain to Chris and me all the details of their outstanding program.

Working in the Schools - Manierre School

2009-04-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Chris Warren and I visited the Working in the Schools Power Lunch program at Manierre School in Old Town. The Power Lunch program is one of the many literacy, tutoring, and mentoring programs that Working in the Schools, or WITS offers.

The Power Lunch program brings corporate employees from one workplace to a school during their lunch hour. During the lunch hour the students read with the volunteers and improve their language skills. Tutors come every two weeks, with two different work places alternating every other week. This gives students a chance to work with two tutors. It also gives the students a chance to interact with professional adults in a relaxed atmosphere. The goals of the program are to improve students' reading skills, but also to have the students want to pick up books on their own and to feel more confident reading by themselves and in a group setting. Books are donated to the schools by a variety of organizations, and WITS tries to have only new books for their students.

Another program that WITS does is their workplace mentoring program. While with the power lunch program has the professional employees come to the schools, the workplace mentoring program has the students come to the workplaces where the students get tutored and also where they can find out about future jobs and interact with an adult in a more mentor-like relationship. The workplace mentoring program is often a continuation for students who participated in the power lunch program.

There is also an early childhood program, where volunteers read to young children pre-k and kindergarten-age so the students are exposed to the joys of reading at an early age. There is also a Saturday tutoring program, where students and volunteers who wouldn't be able to come during the week can get homework help during the weekend.

I hope to visit all of the WITS programs in the future, but I'm so glad that I at least got to see the power lunch program. I talked to the students after their reading tutors left and all of the students talked about how much they love their tutors and how they are now excited to go the library and read new books. Trust me, the enthusiasm was very genuine from these students.

I always like to promote other programs fundraisers - especially in these tough economic times, we need to help each other out more than ever. So, if you're free tonight, Thursday April 16th, you should head over to Carnivale, 702 W. Fulton Market for the Young Professionals "Chalk it Up for WITS" event. It's $75 for all you can eat appetizers, drinks, a raffle, and Latin dancing. Unfortunately, I can't go, but you all should because it looks like a great time.

And thanks to Lindsey Giacherio for telling me all about all of the WITS programs. I was so impressed with your students and your program!