To all Spectrum staff:
As I am about to enter my last week at Spectrum I wanted to send a note out to say goodbye to everyone and to also let you all know how much it has meant for me to work here for the last two years. My time at Spectrum has really made an impact on me that will stay with me for the rest of my lifetime. Both in terms of the work with our clients as well as the collaborations and friendships that I have made with many of you have impacted me greatly. I am on my way to big changes as I leave Vermont, the place that I love and consider home, and move to the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I only hope that I can find an organization to be a part of that comes close to what we all have here at Spectrum. I am not going to make specific mentions here as I have and will continue to do that in person, but please know that I have great respect and admiration for this organization and all of the people that commit their time and energy to the work they are doing. It is a large organization with a lot going on, but a great job has been done to make me feel, and I would imagine others as well, to feel like an important part of the Spectrum family. I feel as though I am leaving a piece of myself here and will be taking a piece of Spectrum with me as I embark on my new journey’s. I am not sure what else to say, so I will leave it that and simply say goodbye and I will miss coming to work here every day.

Take care,

Justin Morgan-Parmett

Program Coordinator

Project Safe Choices: Challenging Young Men’s Violence

One of our Burlington donors sent us a check with this note enclosed:

Dear Mark,
I received my economic stimulus check and I’m not going to let myself know that I have any extra money in my checking account! Instead, I’m sending half of it to Spectrum and half to the Chittenden County Food Shelf. Please use it to purchase something on the Spectrum wish list.

We have such great people supporting us, they are incredible.

So you can see from the photo slide show and video on the blog that our D.C. trip last week went over well. The Senate Judiciary hearing was telecast live on C-Span as well; we are figuring out how to post that on the blog and on the Spectrum website as well. And the Free Press had it as their cover story last Wednesday. Everyone up here is talking about it, in fact I ran into Governor Douglas last night at the annual United Way dinner and he said, “Hey, that was great you got to testify in D.C. last week, nice going!”

The Spectrum staff member who testified with me was Michael Hutchins. Michael was a client here when I first arrived at Spectrum in 2003. He went through our various programs, graduated, worked out in the world for a while, and then one day he asked me to go out for coffee. He asked if he could apply to work at Spectrum as a counselor in one of our houses. He applied and got the job and has now been at it for a few years. He is excellent, as you can imagine. He told his story at the Senate hearing last week, and I am very proud of him because it took a lot of courage. He bared it all: a childhood of sexual and physical abuse, adopted at age 6by a wonderful woman, and then a period of adolescence filled with drug abuse and even two near-death overdoses. He then came to Spectrum and with the help of our staff overcame all that to construct a life of health, meaning and purpose.

I think Sen. Leahy and everyone else there was moved by Michael’s testimony. I emailed him later, “The whole country is now on notice that young people can come back from abandonment, abuse and addiction to live a life that helps others.”

It was a great day for Michael, me, for Vermont, for Spectrum and for the hundreds of programs like ours throughout the country. I do believe the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act will be reauthorized, and I am glad we had something to do with it.