Hi Mark,

I have noticed a high level of accountability with you and Spectrum, as evidenced by your annual report and measurements of success.  It is nice to know what the goal is and measure progress so you know when you’re progressing towards the goal.  I’m glad that is how Spectrum is being run.

Carl Ashley

Spectrum recently held our 5^th Annual Empty Bowl Dinner, kicking off our 40^th Anniversary of helping homeless and at-risk youth in our community. 

We have found over the years that the Empty Bowl dinner helps Spectrum to inform, connect with and thank our community of supporters while we raise a portion of the much needed funds to sustain our various programs for the thousands of youth we work with every year. 

This year, the cumulative effort of staff, volunteers, businesses, artists, and community members helped Spectrum earn over $16,000 at this event – a 50% increase compared to last year! 

One sobering note is that due to the sagging economy our needs have skyrocketed in the last year, and it costs us over $55,000 to feed our youth annually.  Funds raised at the Empty Bowl go directly to help defray this expense of providing meals to our clients.

I would like to sincerely thank the following businesses for their major underwriting support:

Citizens Bank
Vermont Tent
Comcast

And:

Duncan-Wisneiwski Architecture, Cummings Electric, New England Floor Covering, City Market, Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, Main Street Landing, Union Street Media, Hubner + Suhner Inc., Bennington Potters, and Seventh Generation.

And we couldn’t have done it without the restaurants that donated the delicious soup, bread, salad and dessert for the night:

Alex’s Restaurant – August First – Chef’s Corner – City Market Onion River Co-op – Green Mountain Coffee Roasters – Healthy Living Natural Foods Market – Kountry Kart Deli – Leunig’s Bistro – New Moon Café – Pappa Frank’s – Penny Cluse Café – Ri Ra The Irish Pub – Shanty on the Shore – Sugarsnap – The Scuffer.

 If you couldn’t make it but would like to see photos from the night, click here!

I’m excited to share this article in today’s Burlington Free Press about our juvenile diabetes mentoring program! 

Collaborating with Dr. Dan Shumer of the Pediatric Endocrinology Department at Vermont’s Children’s Hospital/Fletcher Allen, we’re working to pair Type 1 diabetes adolescents with Type 1 diabetes adults in a mentoring relationship.

Interested in becoming a mentor?  Click here!

Want to make a gift to support our mentoring program?  Click here!

That’s my wife Marybeth, who is a mentor at Spectrum, with her mentee Madina, along with Madina’s brother Sharmarke (who also has a mentor but could not make this sledding excursion with us), along with our son Liam and me.

If you read my Feb 8 entry below, you will see that we were one of three finalists for the St. Mike’s Fix it With Five contest.  I did my presentation along with reps from Cots and Neighborkeepers, then the students voted, and we were selected!  That’s a $10,000 award, so thank you St. Michael’s College for selecting us, we are very grateful.

We received this email from one of our staff, offering their space and services for free, I am so grateful to them:

1. Any youth currently matched or on the waitlist with Spectrum Mentoring who is interested in using our Youth Studio space M-F 3pm to 5:30pm is welcome to do so provided we sign them up for the Youth Studio (we have an emergency contact form that needs to be signed by a parent or guardian and an anonymous demographic survey that they will need to fill out). They are welcome to attend with or without their mentor, but the first meeting should be scheduled so we make sure we have staff available to work directly with them. At the moment, we have room for at least 5 Spectrum youth.

2. Any pairs who are super excited about art making and who would like access to all of our studios, as our pairs do, will need to sign up as a BCA mentor pair so that we can cover the cost of their studio use. In this case, they would be counted as a Spectrum pair and as a BCA pair.

3. And as we already discussed and planned, I would like to offer at least one or two weekend art workshops a month to interested Spectrum pairs (with the possibility of opening it up to other programs). We can figure out budgets and whatnot as we get closer to offering a class.

I hope that you’re having a wonderful day! I very much look forward to this collaboration.

Cheers,

Melissa Stiebert

Community Programs Coordinator

BURLINGTON CITY ARTS

Ryan is my neighbor and started volunteering as a mentor with us two years ago.  Here he is with his mentee Abdulkadir, and his sister Madina, ice climbing in Essex.