Following Your Deams
DREAMS

On Friday, December 2, 2005, City Year Seattle/King County brought together 35 City Year corps members and 65 students from South Lake Alternative High School to participate in the day-long “Dreams” workshop at South Lake High School in the Rainier Valley area. The goal of the day was to help young people connect their core values with tools to achieve their dreams. This event was sponsored by NELA (Northwest Education Loan Association), which is a part of The Sallie Mae Foundation.

The day began with keynote speaker Skip Roland, a professional motivational speaker. Next, each high school student attended their individualized schedule of breakout sessions which consisted of five half-hour break-out sessions with 23 speakers, including representatives from NELA, Seattle Vocational Institute, United Way of King County, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Job Corps, Bank of America, the King County government, Seattle Public School’s, Seattle Parks & Recreation, and many others.

After the break-out sessions, a half-hour HR/Recruitment Fair was made available for participants to have the chance to connect with people from local schools and businesses that they may not have had the chance to meet during the breakout groups. A fabulous lunch was donated by local businesses including: Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria, Bill’s Bodacious Barbeque, King Donut Teriyaki, Noah’s Bagels, and Cupcake Royale. During lunch participants and presenters were able to and network with each other.

South Lake is a school for students who were not succeeding in traditional high schools. With so much time devoted to testing in schools, this workshop gave the South Lake students’ a rare opportunity to think about the world, and begin to assess their own place in it and what values they want to carry with them in their field of choice. At the same time, it provided an opportunity for corps members to serve as role models for the high school students while also gaining ideas about their next steps after graduating from City Year.

Casey Family Programs Team
Program High Lights

The Casey Family Programs Team recently held the first ever "Fallout 05" open-mic event that gave youth an opportunity to share art they created. The show had an overwhelming response from students as most of them contributed to the show. Students read their own poetry, performed martial arts moves, danced, drilled and hung their art projects up around the room. “Fallout 05” gave foster care youth a unique chance to not only share their writing and art but an important piece of them self. Treehouse Executive Director, Janis Avery comments, “I have realized that Treehouse Learning Center is becoming a safe, supportive place for youth to learn, to relax and to be cared about. I am so impressed by your team (Casey Family Programs Team). The group is dedicated, creative and passionate and youth are really responding. Treehouse Learning Center has become a teen hang out, because of the beautiful work that is going on at Treehouse. Thank you for making it possible.”

A Starfish Story
RASL

Every month our corps members write “Starfish" stories that highlight the service they are doing in the community and how they know that they are making a difference in our youths lives. This month City Year Seattle/King County would like to highlight a Starfish story from Dana Rae Parker. Dana Rae is a 22 year-old corps member from Mississippi and serves on the Casey Family Programs Team.

Dana Rae Parker

“This Starfish story is very difficult for me, because it highlights an issue that I am still trying to cope with. Hurricane Katrina came just a few weeks after I moved to Seattle, WA from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I couldn't communicate with my family for a week, and our City Year orientation day was the first day I had heard from my family. The following months I was very confused and torn between staying to help serve the Seattle community with my team and corps or going home and helping the community I grew up in. I decided to stay in City Year Seattle/King County and serve the community while figuring out ways to connect my new home with my hometown.

One day, my supervisor at Youthbuild, popped her head in the door and announced to the Casey Team that there was a person coming who was from New Orleans and had been traveling since the hurricane. He was working towards his G.E.D, but was reading at a 3rd grade level and needed some individual help and attention. I quickly saw my opportunity to connect my new community to my old community. I started designing lesson plans and worksheets for the new student and was excited to start working with him. The first days of class he seemed very skeptical of a program were people in red jackets where actually wanting to help him with his studies.

Mississippi after the Hurricane

During our creative writing class, the student wrote about his experience in New Orleans before and after the hurricane. His story was honest and heartbreaking. I saw the story as a way to work on his grammar and spelling and we quickly started editing the paper together. In these sessions we would talk about New Orleans and our memories of the French Quarter, Mardi Gras and southern life. I not only viewed his attitude and social interaction with the other students as a change for the better, but he was starting to spell better and understand sentence structure. He actually told me he was taking the words and worksheets home to study. I am amazed at his inner strength, passion and commitment to a successful life in his new home.

Way To Go Board Members!
Development

You Are Invited!
Visitor´s Program

Everyone is always asking, “What is City Year?” “What are the red coats for? Or one of corps member’s personal favorites, “Are you guys’ astronauts?” The short answer is : City Year began in 1988 to engage young adults from diverse backgrounds in powerful community service, as well as to encourage leadership development and long-term civic engagement in youth.

City Year Seattle/King County has been serving the Greater Seattle area since 1998. In this community, in the past seven years alone, a total of 347 corps members have graduated, serving over 424,800 hours of national service. In duration of these national service hours, 161,244 have been devoted to tutoring and mentoring 11,755 children (100 hours/child), over 9,500 children and adults have been engaged in service along with 275 non-profit service partners. In total, $1,639,575 in college scholarships have been generated for graduated corps members and $9,981,975 in resources have been raised to support City Year’s service in Seattle since 1997. City Year is here, in full affect and ready to serve.

City Year is always open for people, businesses, or organizations in the community to come in for visit to get a better perspective of what City Year is doing in your community. Come on by. For more information please contact Jessica Emerson, Development Director, at (206) 219-4992 or e-mail at jemerson@cityyear.org.

PITW# 23
Putting Idealism To Work; BING!

City Year’s mission is extremely large (change the world!) and extremely small (today’s service project). Only if we do the small mission well will the big mission follow.

Word To Live By
Quote Of The Month

-Margaret Mead, Anthropologist.

Where Are You Going To Do Your Year Of Service?
Recrutment

Empowering Our Corps
Leadership Development Days

Help Support Our Corps
Wish Lists

• Prizes for kids (books – English and bilingual books; toys; tickets to museums, etc.)

• Bus passes for field trips

• Stereo/boom-box with CD player

• TV VCR/DVD Combination

• 12 passenger van

• Locked filing cabinet

• Office chairs

• Desk chairs

• Conference table (Large)

• Computer workstations

• Laser Printer

• Art/Craft supplies (construction paper, color copy paper, markers, crayons, markers, glue, paint, etc.)

• Tickets to Seattle Events

• Snack Food

• Gift Certificate to buy lunch

• 3 Flash Drives

For information on how to support our organization please contact Jessica Emerson, Development Director at (206) 219-4992 or e-mail at jemerson@cityyear.org.. Thank you for your support!