The Spectrum Memo: a conversation with Mark

A recap and photos of our 5th Annual Empty Bowl dinner!

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:50:19 +0000

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!

Great article about our Juvenile Diabetes Mentoring Program!

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:48:51 +0000

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!

Casey’s Hill sledding adventure with mentees

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:35:39 +0000

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.

Thank you St. Mike’s students!

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:48:28 +0000

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.

Thank you Burlington City Arts

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:56:15 +0000

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

Spectrum mentor Ryan Jensen

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:04:56 +0000

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.

Our Diabetes Mentoring Program highlighted on WPTZ

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:21:59 +0000

In case you missed it last night, our Mentoring Program that pairs kids with type 1 diabetes with adults with type 1, was highlighted on WPTZ.

To watch the piece, click here.

Interested in becoming a mentor, either for a youth in our community or a youth with type 1 diabetes? Please contact Deirdre Johnson: djohnson@spectrumvt.org – 802.660.0580 x 321

To learn more about our Mentoring Program, click here.

Our juvenile diabetes mentoring program

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:16:57 +0000

We started this a few months ago, in which we match adults with Type I diabetes with children who have the same. One of our new mentors, Rob Mann put signs up at pharmacies to recruit more adults. He is a salesman for a pharmaceutical firm and was making the rounds of his customers and we asked him to put the poster up. He is also doing really well with his youth match…they meet on a very regular basis. I am grateful to Rob for his volunteer efforts.

Spectrum is one of three nonprofit finalists

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:56:21 +0000

St. Michael’s College awarding $10,000 to a local nonprofit

Seventeen nonprofits applied, we made it to the final 3, their students will vote this week for which should receive $10,000.

Nice message from a staff member at a drug rehab

mredmond@spectrumvt.org — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:32:13 +0000

This person refers to Melissa, who is Melissa Mallette, the case manager for our shelter:

“I am writing to let you know that my patient is heading off tomorrow to the shelter. I want you to know how wonderful it has been to work with Melissa over the phone, and that she has been nothing but helpful. I hope that once this patient settles in you and others will get to know what a joy she is to work with. Again thank you, to you and your staff for all of the help and I hope to hear that this patient makes it into the SRO program.”