“Every Moment has its Pleasures and its Hope.” ~ Jane Austen

New Volunteers
It's been a week full of volunteer trainings and I have to say that we're SO GLAD to have our college students back!  So far, in the last week, I've trained 12 new (and a few returning) people, and I have 8 more coming up tomorrow!

One of the nice things about training returning volunteers is that they already know what they're getting themselves in to.  I've taken up warning people at the trainings that once you sign the Volunteer Promise, you're in it forever.  You become part of the family.  The returning volunteers are proof of that.

Touching Story
I trained one on Tuesday who was not able to help out last semester, but he was here last year, and he very specifically asked to be placed working with one student with whom he got close last year.  The student he was asking about came to us a couple years ago, straight from Mexico, barely able to speak English and has excelled at catching up since then.  Last year, there was one day he started crying at the end of the program because he didn't finish his homework and he knew that there was no one to help him at home.  This year, he's gotten a little more rambunctious.  He's a kid who is finally comfortable with his surroundings, so he's pushing the boundaries and getting into a little bit of trouble.  I'm really glad this volunteer is back and wants so badly to take an interest in this one kid.  Sometimes, that's all it takes.

Health Concerns
We've sent a lot of our kids home sick this week.  We've also had several call in sick.  The first one we sent home is a very sweet girl who always has a huge smile on her face and works very hard.  You can tell, every day, that she is very appreciative to have this opportunity for help on her homework, the chance to meet safely with kids her age, and maybe try some new things.  On Monday she came in with a bad cough, but was still smiling throughout the day.  Until I walked into the room she was in and she asked me if it was hot in there.  It was not.  In fact, it was downright chilly.  I felt her forehead and told her that if *I* could tell she was running a fever, she must be burning up, and she would have to go home and get some rest.  Wednesday, her mom called to say that she hadn't gone to school that day, but she was asking if she could come to the program.  Unfortunately, the answer was no.

The weird thing about all the kids we've sent home is that none of them were for the same thing.  I know that the flu is going around, and some were flu-like symptoms, but some were not.  Just remember to wash your hands, people!  Eat right, exercise, drink lots of water, and get lots of rest.  This flu season is a bad one!

Still Going Strong
Despite all that we have going on this week, we're still running our regularly scheduled program.  Our kids actually had a chance to go to the store this week (which sometimes doesn't happen when we don't have enough volunteers).  The hot ticket item to the younger kids was the Mr. Potato Head that I bought as an illustration for the Children's Sermon I gave this Sunday.  I never had a Mr. Potato Head growing up, and Toy Story came out when I was older, so I had no special attachment to it, and just stuck it in there.  The saddest part is that there was only one, so all of the kids (K-3) wanted to go to the store first.

And now some pictures proving the kids actually do work too.  These were taken during the Troopers and Braves' 2-minute math tests.  If you look closely, you can see some of them counting on their fingers.

And one of the Conquerors (4-6) playing *something* during gym games.

I just like the ghostly look. :-)


What I'm Up To
By the end of this week, I will have coordinated the program twice and run two trainings.  I've finished "Thank You" cards to people who have donated to me (finally!), and, thanks to the help of awesome volunteers on Monday evening, my regular tasks of putting price tags on things for the store and sorting out newly donated books (by AR Reading level, and organization for our library) are almost done!  Now I have the new task of working on the K-1st grade curriculum, if I can figure out how with the resources we've got.  We actually have plenty of actual resources for the curriculum.  The problem is the resources for organization, given the actual physical size of some of the parts of the curriculum.

Should be interesting.

THANK YOU
I just want to say again, to everyone who is supporting me in this mission, financially and otherwise, how much it means to me.  The outpouring of love I feel from you guys is beyond what I ever expected.  Even if you haven't been able to contribute with your money, you have been so creative in finding ways to help out and it just blows me away.  And definitely keeps me on my toes.

So, if you're one of the people who loves me and/or the kids at Pomona Hope, gives of your time, your resources, and/or your creativity, and you happen to be reading this, thank you.

"Hope Has Been and Always Will Be Safe. It's Inside Every One of Us." ~ Xena

It's been awhile since I posted last, but in my defense, the kids had the week of Thanksgiving off.  And then half of the week after that we were closed.

Program Updates
During that downtime,we put together an advent calendar and activities for the kids for every program day before Christmas.  We got to teach the 4th-8th graders how to look verses up in the Bible (we're still working on it), and they got to hear the Christmas story as well as many things that are part of the Christmas story that you might not usually hear (like that they had been waiting for the Messiah to come for centuries... and they thought he was going to be born as royalty... and that the Wise Men did not get there the same night he was born, but a couple years later).

Parties!
We've been trying to get all the kids to turn in their report cards by bribing them with a big party after the new year.  Details on that to follow, but it will be a lot of fun!

We also had a big Christmas party on Thursday (the last day of our program until the New Year).  We had folks from Vineyard Church and Baseline Community Church come in to help the kids decorate cookies, play games, do crafts, and choose and wrap presents to give to their families!  I think the visitors had a lot of fun, but I KNOW the kids did!

Photobomb fail

Issues
Except one.  One of our junior highers has been falling behind in one of her classes because she's been telling us and her mom that she had no homework when she did.  I realize that's around the time of life that kids start doing that (I know I did), but does anyone have any suggestions?  She ended up missing most of the games AND most of eMerge because we were working on her project that was due on Friday.  And right now, her goal for life is to marry rich. :-/

We're also struggling with parent buy-in.  Most of our parents are great and really make sure that they're following our rules so that their kids get the best of it all.  Some even go overboard!  But a few don't take it that seriously, and we know of at least one who has almost none at all.  The kid has been coming and going by himself, because he wants to be there and wants to be a good kid, but isn't sure how.  But he knows that we can help him.  And us knowing these stories makes it easier to not get frustrated with the kids when they falter.

Daily Stuff
We ran low on volunteers the last couple weeks.  That's what happens when most of your volunteers are college students and they have these pesky things called "finals."  Who wants to start a petition to eliminate this archaic form of endurance testing?

Anyway, I got to hang out with the Troopers and Braves the other week.  We let them have their gym games outside on the last day before the rain started.  I think they enjoyed it.

High School Girls Bible Study
I've discovered that I apparently have a gift for telling Bible stories in ways that high school girls enjoy.  This past Tuesday night, I lured them in with promises of food and presents.  I made them my version of Crockpot Turkey Chili (which doesn't really taste like chili, but it is good and it is super healthy.  I didn't tell them that last part.).  The presents were actually paid for by the Alternative Christmas fair at La Verne Heights Presbyterian Church.  All the girls got their own personal Bible.  Now they can use those instead of me having to haul around my bag 'o bibles, and I can put mine back in their original strategic locations.  :-)

They had a lot of fun, and we had the Christmas miracle of one of our girls getting to stay for longer than an hour!  We're working our way up!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

"But the Needy Will Not Always be Forgotten, Nor the Hope of the Afflicted Ever Perish." ~ Psalms 9:18

Been REALLY busy the last week and a half!  I've been running the program for over a week now, while Emily took that time to work on a huge grant.  That is, until I would call her down for various things, like random people walking in looking for food, or moms of our kids coming in looking for her.  Mostly because they know I don't speak Spanish.  I need to learn Spanish.  For reals.  Someone add that to the list.

LAST Sunday, many of our kids participated in the Inland Valley Hope Partners' 39th Annual "Walk for the Hungry."  I explained most of it in my last post, but I didn't tell you how it went!  By Thursday, I got permission slips from HALF of the kids in our program, and they were really excited about coming.  Now, I've never really had to organize something like this before: getting permission slips, scheduling start and end times (if you know me personally, I'm pretty much late to EVERYTHING... it's part of my charm), finding qualified drivers with open seats, figuring out the best route to the location, making sure we had enough volunteers to keep everyone together, not losing anybody, etc. etc. etc.  Turns out it's a lot of work.  But Pomona Hope has wonderful volunteers who are ready to help out even outside of their normal volunteer hours.  And that's the way we like it.  We had enough volunteers signed up to have two kids to every volunteer.  And we actually had fewer kids come than signed up, so the ratio was even better!

MOST of our group.

As you can tell from the group picture, there was FREE POPCORN!  There was also free face painting (which our kids went crazy with!) and free balloons! The kids had a lot of fun, (I think) the volunteers had a lot of fun, the dogs had a lot of fun, and I took a nap on the couch when it was all over... I'd say it was a success!  (My dog, Rosie, is the one in the picture, and her best friend, Hurley, joined us.)

On the way to the Walk.

All the kids took turns walking Rosie.  I didn't even see her for most of the Walk, since she was dragging whatever kid was walking her to the front, while I was hanging out toward the back making sure we didn't lose anyone.  Every so often, whatever kid was walking her would get dragged back through the crowd (mostly made up of our group) until they found me, because Rosie realized I wasn't where she could see me.  Once she found me, she would charge back to the front, kid in tow.

I bring all this up about my dog because I was never really concerned that anything would happen to her.  If the kid was walking my dog, I was pretty sure they would take on the responsibility and make good decisions.  They even picked up the dog poop!  And then promptly handed it to the closest volunteer.  Close enough.

They met Tremor!

And Gumby!

Face painting!

Taking a break

 One awesome thing about the Walk location this year was that it was around (and through) the Claremont Colleges, where many of our volunteers come from.  It was a chance for the kids to see what a college campus (or 7) looks like.  They were fascinated by the bathroom at CGU (sorry CGU, they had to go and the door was open).

The little kids were REALLY tuckered by the end... actually, some of them were complaining about being tired before the first checkpoint.  But they made it (though one or two may have gotten piggyback rides, or rides in the wagon)!  I'm sure their families were glad for the break in energy too. :-)

The balloons were a challenge, but I imagine, well worth it.

Not just on the face.

This is where I found them when the walk was over.

Unacceptable.

"Hope is the Companion of Power, and Mother of Success; for Who So Hopes Strongly Has Within Him the Gift of Miracles." ~ Samuel Smiles

We've got some big things coming up at Pomona Hope, and a lot of enthusiasm from participants (kids, parents, volunteers) and those who want to participate!

Firstly, the high school girls bible study group.  We still need a name.  I will entertain suggestions from the audience.  Maybe I'll make it into a contest.  The struggle with the group is that they get permission to come, and then at the last minute something comes up and they have to watch their younger siblings or school activities or something.  I had similar issues when I was in high school and missed out on a lot, so I'm not deterred by this.  I do think it will be easier for everyone to show up regularly once we move it to Tuesdays, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, we'll keep trying to meet, and (if it turns out like last Friday), only one person can come, we'll hang out and watch a movie instead.  I also had two of the girls come over on Monday night to eat some of my dinner, but I didn't turn it into a bible study (which was all prepared!) because I didn't want them to feel tricked into it, though I don't think they would have really minded.  We watched Once Upon a Time instead.  So now they've seen the most recent episode, and that's it.

Secondly, volunteers.  I've been in contact with 4 new volunteers from places I never expected, just in the last few days. My favorite has to be the one who sent me a facebook message basically saying, "I was waiting around in the choir room of the church waiting to get married last week when I saw a flyer for an outreach in Pomona and I think it said to contact you."  The only way I can think to answer my automatic question of "Who does that?!" is "It's a miracle!"  I'm going to frame it and put it in my office someday.
 
Thirdly, the Walk for the Hungry.  The Walk for the Hungry is Inland Valley Hope Partners' big fundraiser for the year.  Most of the money goes to local food banks.  Every dollar raised can be used to leverage 5 pounds of food!  The kids of Pomona Hope are going to be participating in this year's Walk.  When we were originally approached, our issue was that many of our families are just getting by, and some may even benefit from the local food banks, so who would they fundraise from?!  But then we had a donor come up with the idea, and commit to donating $10 per kid who participates!  So now, all the kids need to do is get permission from their parents, and show up!  I'm in the midst of arranging volunteers to keep track of all the kids the day of, and to provide rides to and from the Walk.  Should be an exciting (and exhausting!) day. :-)

Fourthly, Pomona Hope's Annual Fundraiser.  This is our big fundraiser for the year, so it's usually a big deal, but this year it's taking on a totally new format.  Instead of a sit-down dinner, it's an art show (well, art auction, but I know I can't afford anything, so for me, it's a show), with tapas.  I'm excited about it, it should be a lot of fun.  It gives everyone more of a chance to talk to each other, network, etc. and it gives us an ice breaker or two to boot!  The art is being donated by local artists, and they were specifically asked to create something that reminded them of Hope.  The event is called "Impressions of Hope."  If you have any questions, or want to attend, please contact Tanya at teveleth@gmail.com.

It's weird.  I'm tired, from lack of sleep, because I keep stressing out about whether or not something was done, but only for the things I've already finished.  But I'm too excited for it to stop me.  And that problem will probably be solved once this is my only job. :-)

"There is No Hope of Joy Except in Human Relations." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

This week, I trained a new set of volunteers (from 3 different places!), had someone offer to sponsor (without even asking!  I actually hadn't even thought of this!) each of our kids to walk in the upcoming Walk for the Hungry (still have to figure out the logistics of how to get them there and how to keep them together), and had one of the boys admit to me that he started liking the girl at school that he'd been complaining to me for a couple weeks had been calling him a name (not a bad name, just not his own).  Didn't ever think I'd be the one he'd tell this to, but I'm not gonna complain.

It occurs to me that the kids who have been with us for a long time are starting to open up more on a different level now.  What we learn from them and see them understand during the ensuing discussions just blows us away.  It's amazing, but it also catches us a little off guard.  It requires us to be prepared to listen when they are ready to talk (with no advance warning).  So far, we've risen to the occasion, but I also wonder how many opportunities we may have missed because we weren't ready for it.  If you're reading this and are of the praying variety, please pray that we continue to rise to the challenge and can continue to help these kids realize that they're special and important, and that they can make a difference too.

Oh yeah, I also got to spend more time with the younger kids in the program this week.  They love gym games, and this week they really loved playing with the parachute.  Tuesday, I nearly passed out after blowing up a beach ball for them (not really, just got winded) and Wednesday, they showed me how to play Sharks & Lifeguards... or some title with those positions in the game.  It was really cute.


Tonight was the first meeting of the high school girls bible study.  Only two of the girls could make it, but I think it may have been the two that need it most.  We got frozen yogurt, talked about what they'd like to learn about and what kind of background they have and whether they have bibles, and then we played Just Dance 3.  So it looks like our group is made up of one Catholic, one Scientologist, one Agnostic, and two girls I don't have a read on yet.  Between the wide variety of religious backgrounds and the things these girls have to deal with that I never did just by virtue of their school and neighborhood, I'm back to being a little nervous about leading this group.

Lord, give me the right words.  Your words.

"And Now These Three Remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the Greatest of These is Love." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:13

First week back this school year with a whole ton of new volunteers (from the Claremont Colleges)!  And they're pretty incredible.  The kids seemed to latch onto them almost immediately, and these volunteers, being college students, seemed to remember how to do whatever the kids were working on.  Perfect!

This was also the first week of taking the 4-6th graders up to the computer lab again.  This week they were working on drawing a picture of themselves in Paint, copying it and pasting it into a Word document, and then writing a story about their week, as a form of "autobiography". 

There was ONE day this week where we only had one student show up for the optional homework time.  So I got to help our one student while a pow-wow happened in the background.  It's a good example of what we're doing as an organization: helping with schoolwork, yes, but also creating community and sharing with each other about church, God, life, etc.

 

 

 

Courtesy of Dave Evans.

Now admittedly, the discussion corner didn't last the entire time, and towards the end of our homework help session, we were both getting the tired-crazies... the last math problem was drawing a box of the dimensions that she had already done the complex equations to find.  It took 15 minutes.  But the homework got done!