"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!

“The Best Way to Not Feel Hopeless is to Get Up and Do Something. Don’t Wait for Good Things to Happen to You. If You Go Out and Make Some Good Things Happen, You Will Fill the World With Hope, You Will Fill Yourself With Hope.” ~ Barack Obama

Election Update
Let's see... last I left off was being excited about the election at Pomona Hope, right?  Well, the results are in, and they look something like this:

Yup, one of our kids figured out they could write in a candidate, and voted for herself.  Love the creativity.

The Conquerors (the group who voted) with their "I Voted" stickers.

Speaking of creativity, one of the students, while he was voting, asked why we weren't doing some kind of class president election for Pomona Hope.  Besides it not having occurred to us before, why aren't we?!  Stay tuned for more...

HS Bible Study

In other news, the high school girls bible study (still looking for a name!) is now meeting on Tuesday nights, in a really sweet room in the Pomona Hope building that I had never seen before.  That building is like a maze, and it's creepy and awesome all at once.  We also eat ice cream. :-)

The study we're working on is all about Jesus (which, I guess all of them technically are.  But this one is specifically about Jesus).  Last week, we discussed how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and the Law.  I gotta say, I know I'm not incredibly well-versed in the Bible and all its nuances, but I seem to know more than I thought I did.  Most of the lesson was based in Matthew.  We started by following Jesus' lineage all the way back to Abraham.  We ended with the Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32) and the Parable of the Tenants (Matthew 21:33-46) and a discussion about the fact that you can SAY you believe in Jesus all you want, but you have to actually DO something for it to be true.  And that people who have studied and learned what God wants them to do, and then go around telling other people what that is, will ultimately be in way bigger trouble for not doing it themselves.

Junior High Retreat

This past weekend, our 6th-8th graders were invited to a retreat put on by 4 of our volunteers, 3 of whom were our interns in charge of the Summer Enrichment Program this past summer.  I tried to stay out of the way, since it was their thing, but they seemed to be having a lot of fun when I was there on Friday.  Here's some proof:

Yup.  Stuff's happening!

If you like the work Pomona Hope is doing, please visit the "Donate Now!" tab at the top.  If you want to support my work in particular, please type "Kids Coordinator" in the Comments section on that page.

"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. :-)

"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!