Wish List for 2013-2014

The level of generosity of the people around Pomona Hope is constantly astonishing me.  Even in these difficult times, people seem to be more willing to give of their time and their resources.  I see God in every single one of you.  

We've had several requests for our wish list lately (I guess the sales are on now), so we've revisited and revised it.  It is on our website, but at the moment, difficult to stumble across.  Here's the most updated version:

Office Supplies

• Ink: Canon Cartridge 128  (for Canon ImageCLASS D550)

• Ink: Canon 221 (for black, magenta, yellow and cyan); Cannon  PG220 (for Canon MX870 3-In-1 Color)

• Ink: HP colored #22 Black #21 (for HP Deskjet D1560)

• White and Colored Copy Paper

• Cardstock (all colors)

• Transparent contact paper

• Avery Label Paper (all sizes)

• Hanging File Folders

• Sharpie Markers (Fine Point and Ultra Find Point)

• Packaging Tape

• Scotch Tape Dispensers 

• Swingline Brand Staplers

• Index Cards (lined and blank cards of all sizes)

Student Supplies

• 2 pocket, three fastener folders (red, orange, yellow and green)

• Wide-ruled and college-ruled notebooks (spiral bound and periferated) 

• Small, manual pencil sharpeners 

• Pencil top erasers

• Rubber Erasers (white)

• Pencil Cases (any/ all colors welcome! Ideal dimensions: 1.1"H x 2.7"W x 7.9"L)

• Pencil Boxes (any/ all colors welcome! Ideal dimensions: 2 1/4"H x 5 5/8"W x 8 1/4)

• Crayons (boxes of 24)

• Coloring pencils (boxes of 12)

• Rulers

• Child's scissors

Materials to Aid Instruction

• White board markers

• White board erasers

• White board cleaning spray

• Stickers  

Incentives

• Incentive prizes for girls (ages 5 -14) e.g. iPod, backpacks, clothes, fun toys, cool school supplies

• Incentive prizes for boys (ages 5-14) e.g. iPod, backpacks, soccer and basketballs, fun toys, cool school supplies

• Incentive Prizes: $5 gift cards to any of the following locations: Target, Walgreens, Rite Aid, McDonalds, Jack in the Box, the 99 Cent Store

Electronics

• Four laser jet printers

• Triple A Batteries

• DVD player

Misc: 

• Ceiling Fans (4)

• Megaphone

• Tall Oscelating fans

“Remember, Hope is a Good Thing, Maybe the Best of Things, and No Good Thing Ever Dies.” ~Stephen King

The first week of Summer Enrichment with Pomona Hope went swimmingly!  We had plenty of volunteers, about a bajillion (not really) students, and for the most part, everyone was pretty well behaved.  The only talking out of turn that I noticed in my workshops were because the students were so engaged, so I find it hard to punish at that time.

Emily said that the first day was the smoothest first day she'd ever seen... which concerns me a little since it was so crazy (at least the prep part and the very beginning), but as the coordinator for the day, I have to admit that it did go really well while I was coordinating.

It was a short week due to the Independence Day holiday (which I hope went well for you all).  We only had one history workshop this week, but it was awesome!  Mr. Bob (Bob Beck, from La Verne Heights Presbyterian Church) came in as a guest speaker and showed the kids a bunch of artifacts from the area, some going all the way back to 1820!  As a cultural historian, he is interested in how people lived before today, so he has all kinds of interesting things that even *I* had never seen before and wouldn't have known what to do with it if it fell in my lap.

History Workshop

 

Junior really wanted a picture with Mr. Bob!

What's a record?

I know! I know!

Can't decide which camera to look at.

That moment when you realize you're holding $100,000 dollars...

Receipt for a slave, dated 1820

Gas mask for what?!

We all know that one!

A couple of stragglers.  Can't be upset with their interest!

Even the middle school kids are interested!

Drama Workshop : Learning Lines

Science Workshop: Electromagnets

Garden Workshop: Personal Herb Gardens (It's HOT!)

Computer Workshop: Time to Type!

Learning what to do before distracted.

Pictures? Really?

Very concentrated

"The Natural Flights of the Human Mind are Not From Pleasure to Pleasure But From Hope to Hope." ~ Samuel Johnson

It has been SOOOO long since I updated!  I apologize!  But Emily has assured me that everything starts over with the Summer Program.  So I will just try to catch you up on all the best stories.

Funny Stories
One day, as I was sitting in the sign-in room waiting to check people in, one of our 6th graders, who struggles with his sight and has learning disabilities on top of that, came in incredibly proud of himself.  The following conversation ensued...

Him: Liz, guess what?!  My teacher said in front of the entire class how much my handwriting had improved!
Me: Good job!  I'm proud of you!
Him: Yeah, it's because I started putting spaces in between my words like you told me to!
Me: Awwww, maybe next time you'll listen to me in less than 6th months.

Fun Stories
 I actually started typing this blog entry on the last day of the After School Program, while I was sitting drenched in my office chair, after having been one of the main targets in the end of the year water fight for all the kids in the program!  That was a fun day, filled with snacks, games, and prizes.
********************************************************************************

Batgirl came to visit!  Seriously!  She came as a reward for all our students turning in their reports cards, back in March.  It was a surprise for the kids, and it took some of the older students to warm up to her, but once they saw how excited some of our youngest kids were to see her, they all got on board.  One of our 6th graders was a little upset with me for not telling him ahead of time that she was coming so that he could wear his hat with the Batman symbol on it.  That symbol popped up around our program randomly for a week or so after her visit.  She told me later that she really loved coming out here and had a lot of fun.

I also had an argument with a 1st grader a few weeks later as to whether she was "Batgirl" or "Batwoman," so I had to text Batgirl just to prove it.  Props to the 1st grader, she was a woman... that just wasn't her title.
********************************************************************************

I went to my first Quinceanera! I ate cactus and learned how to say "horchata" and "jamaica."  It was a lot of fun!  (I also learned that horchata and jamaica are called "agua fresca", so when Jelitza asked me, in English, if I wanted water, she didn't mean actual water.)

Patience-Testing Stories
I don't know if you know this, but there seems to be some kind of trend in bullying going around in our schools (our meaning "American" and maybe even "global") today, and Pomona Hope, it seems, is not immune.  We've had to step into situations between some of our kids in the past few months, before they really got to that level (after it became no longer just "all in good fun", but turned to flat out mean, before it got really bad).

Along the same lines, I had the distinguished honor of being the Coordinator the day that we had our first physical altercation ever.  Yay for me. -_-  Everyone was okay, only one student actually did anything.  He felt provoked, but his reaction was over the top and made other students feel unsafe, so he was sent home immediately.  No other warnings necessary.  I had a long talk with him telling him that we still loved him, but that he was being punished for what HE had done, not for what they had done or said to him (which he was still trying to use as an excuse to justify his actions).  All the kids involved spoke to Emily the next day.

Sad Stories
Our student whom we've been concerned about because he was getting himself to and from our program moved a few months ago.  He is still in the Pomona Unified School District, and even going to the same school, but it is now too far for him to walk to us, and it is too far out of the way for the other family who was graciously bringing him along to the program with them.  We miss him and continue to pray for him.

One of our long-time families has moved away.  They told it us it was happening, so it wasn't a huge shock, but it is still sad to see them go.  Their four kids were all an integral part of the program and we will definitely miss them.


Exciting Stories

Jelitza graduated from high school!  Thank goodness she was wearing her Miss Pomona sash, or we would never have found her in the sea of red.  She also got a personal shout out from her Principal at the very beginning of the ceremony.  She was the last one off the field.

What are her future plans, you ask?  She starts at UC Berkeley in the Fall.


********************************************************************************
What are they doing?!  Well, if you're a muggle, you won't understand, but they're looking for a geocache (still to be found).  One of our students earned a day of geocaching as a reward for improving his behavior and having more respect for us as well as for himself.  He chose one friend to go with him.  It was a hot day, but we all had a blast.  At the end of it, he asked when we were doing it again.  I told him he'd have to talk to Jeff, so he answered, "Ok, so after the Summer Program, then."

Summer Program
We've spent the last month or so preparing for a summer program filled with activities geared toward kids 1st-8th grades.  We have workshops for Reading, Science, Math, History, Gym games, Gardening, Computers, and Drama.  Our biggest concern was that we would not have enough volunteers, but we've had more people than ever sign up to help us this summer, and most of them have never volunteered with us before!  They are all such a blessing!

We were also concerned that we would not have many junior high school students, since we usually have 3, maybe 4, on a daily basis during the school year.  But at least count, we had 21 signed up.

We were going to cap the program at 40 students, but we had 50 or so sign up and take the entrance tests.  And we're suckers, so we just let them all in.

We currently have two full-time interns, two interns who are here to teach just one workshop (math and garden), two apprentices who have been part of our program for years and have earned a chance at a scholarship from us, and five interns from LAUP (I believe it's the Los Angeles Urban Project), and they're all a HUGE help to us this summer!  Most of our other volunteers are coming from LifeSong Community Church, who I just found out a week or so ago has a whole group of people dedicated to praying for us!  How exciting!   We always need all the prayer we can get! :-)


Actual events in the summer program warrant their own blog entries.  Just wanted to catch you up on what you missed with this one.

"Hope Deferred Makes the Heart Sick, But a Longing Fulfilled is a Tree of Life." ~ Proverbs 13:12

Two very important things happened at Pomona Hope this week.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” –Proverbs 22:6

We've had so many volunteers lately that we've been able to have almost a 1:1 ratio of student to volunteers almost every day!  I LOVE it!  And I'm so grateful for all our dedicated volunteers who love our kids too!

Last Tuesday, we had a similar ratio, until the optional homework hour at the end of the day.  Our normal volunteers all had to go somewhere else that night (TOTALLY understandable!  This is not their job!), so for the first few minutes, I was alone with 5 or 6 students, who all needed help on different homework assignments at different levels.  (Don't worry, Jeff joined me later, but at that time he was making sure the kids were getting home safely.)

One of our 3rd graders, Dalia*, stayed for extra help on her math homework.  Unfortunately, it was in Spanish, and I'm terrible at Spanish.  She understands Spanish (as it is the primary language in her household), but she can't read it.  I can read it, without understanding it, but the kids laugh at me.  I'm not sure if it's because I'm butchering the language or because it just sounds weird coming out of me.  :-P  In addition to this language barrier, Dalia also has learning disabilities.  She has improved A LOT over the course of the year, but she's still very slow to understand many concepts, and may completely forget them shortly after learning them.  So it's a slow process, but she's also very patient.  I've never seen her give up.

So here's the scene: Me, alone in a room with 6 students who all desperately need help with their homework, reading out loud, in Spanish, math problems that I could do/teach in a heartbeat if they were written in English, but only understanding about 30% of what's actually written on the page.  All of the students are listening to me reading it and then arguing with each other over the proper translation to English.

And then this happened:

Isabel*, a 6th grade student with some very similar learning issues to Dalia (slow to understand, not confident in her ability to do the work alone even after she has shown she can do the problem without help, very patient, never complains), stepped in and took over helping her with her math!  She was explaining the problem to her and teaching her what she needed to do to find the answer!  It was so cute (and I was relatively useless at this moment) that I had to take a picture.

This is what we're doing it for, right?  Not just to help them with their homework, but to help them grow into human beings that want to help.  The important things that happened this week showed me that we're doing a good job.

Jelitza wins Miss Pomona

Miss Pomona Scholarship Pageant Honors 2013 Winner!

Jelitza Herrera, Pomona High School senior, is crowned the 2013 Miss Pomona Scholarship Pageant Queen. (Micah Escamilla/Correspondent)

Ladies and gentlemen, this year's Miss Pomona is one of our star students!  Jelitza (whom I've mentioned in the blog before, but changed her name) has been coming to Pomona Hope since 2006.  She was one of the first students I befriended when I started volunteering that same year.  And she was definitely a handful.  But she has since grown into a beautiful, committed, concerned young woman who is very involved in school, band, Bright Prospects, AVID, and of course, Pomona Hope. 

She was a Pomona Princess last year, and this year decided to run again, for the chance at more scholarship money.  Going into the pageant on Sunday night, she was already guaranteed a position as Princess again, but she is going to make a wonderful queen.

Her speech answered what she would do as the new Miss Pomona this year, and she brought in her experiences with many of the places she volunteers and leads to explain what her next steps would be.  She was amazing and she won!  And I couldn't be more excited for her!  She is a great example of Pomona Hope's work and a wonderful representative of the city of Pomona.

And then we went out for boba!

Showing off her dress.

Now I'm just showing off.

*Names were changed.

“Hope Finds its Fulfillment When Nurtured Through Faith and Shared With Love.” ~ Mollie Marti

Been a couple weeks since my last update.  After telling everyone to be careful not to get sick, I turned around and got sick.  Typical.  So I had a terrible cough and a fever and missed a day and a half of work before I got tired of lying around doing nothing.

Funny Stories

My first full day back to work, I didn't have much of a voice.  One of our more precocious 1st graders started chastising me for being there.

Some of our cuties (Troopers)

Her: Are you sick?  Why are you here?  You shouldn't be here!  Why are you here?
Me: I missed you guys.
Her: Awww, that's sweet!

Later that day, one of the 3rd graders came up to give me a cough drop.

Me: What's this for?
Her: My mom gives it to me when my throat hurts.
Me: Do you think my throat hurts?
Her: Yes.

I love these kids!



Coordinating

Extra math practice is always good.

I got to coordinate the program a couple days over the past couple weeks.  Last Thursday, Emily took the time off during the program to spend time with her parents, who were in town.  Well deserved, I must say. I also coordinated yesterday so that she could get extra work done and meet with a Board member.

Both days I coordinated, the kids who normally stay for the extra hour of homework at the end finished early!  Last week, the one remaining kid opted to study math flash cards with the rest of her time, rather than go home early.





Board Game Day!

The kids had this Monday off of school for Lincoln's Birthday (and they have next Monday off as well!), and then they had Tuesday off for one of California's infamous furlough days.  We normally close the program on the days that they don't have school, since they won't have homework those days, and that takes up a good chunk of their day with us.  But so many days off in such a short amount of time seemed excessive to us, so we opened the program on Tuesday anyway, and instead of homework time, the kids played board games!  It was great.  I got to play Yahtzee with a 3rd grader who had never played before.  She said that it was hard, but fun!

Battleship!

Figuring out how to play Takeoff

Takeoff-- I had this game as a kid!

Playing UNO

I swear we played it.  This picture is from the day before!

While setting up the games on Monday, I found Wizard's Chess!  I feel like I'm the only one nerdy enough around here to be excited by this.  But I'm posting the pictures anyway, dagnabit.

AND they played!

They played regular chess too, and other games not pictured here.  I regret (but only a little) that I was too busy playing games with the kids to take pictures of our K-3rd graders playing games too.  But they played Yahtzee, Junior Scrabble, Guess Who, Sequence, LIFE, and chess.

The great thing about board games is that they teach the kids all kids of things (math, colors, counting, probability, spelling, geography, strategy, following rules, budgeting, etc.), while the kids have fun.  And they really did seem to have fun.  I hope we can do it more often.

One More Training

I had to postpone a training because I was sick, so I ended up doing that one this week.  I trained an education consultant who is going to help us figure out how to improve the program to retain older students.  He had visited the building once before.  What he told his wife about it was that it reminded him of Hogwarts.  One more reason to get excited about finding Wizard's Chess!

Painted on the wall of the Cave.

Bible Study

I also managed to come down with a terrible migraine this week that hit really hard about halfway through the Bible Study on Tuesday, so I'm not sure what exactly was said, or how effective it was, but I do know it was about Hagar, and I'm posting my notes to the "Bible Study" page above.

So, moral of the story:  It's been a rough couple weeks, health-wise.  But I still love these kids.