“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.

"There is Surely a Future Hope for You, and Your Hope Will Not Be Cut Off." ~Proverbs 23:18

It's been so long!  I apologize!  But so much has been happening that it's been hard to keep up with.  I'll try to break it down simply and quickly here.

New Employees

Jeff and I started at half-time salary at Pomona Hope as the Youth Coordinator and the Kids Coordinator, respectively, as of January 2, 2013.  YAY!!!

Reason #1 this update took so long: I was still working half-time at my other job for the first two weeks.  So, it ate up a lot of my time.  That job was about an hour away, so during that period, I was getting home 12 hours after I left with no real lunch break.  I ate at my desk every day.  Except the last one.  That day I ate for free the whole day.

New Rooms

My last entry was not actually MY entry, it was something I reposted on Emily's behalf.  But it was for the work days in which we moved everything out of the church's kitchen (which we were using as two classrooms) and up to the 2nd floor into what WAS the Session Room, and is now our "Balcony Room."  It's set up like a classroom now, instead of a re-purposed kitchen!  That is where our K-3rd graders are now.

Not a kitchen!

She approves of her new room.

The loneliest goat sees the last sunset last.

Part two was moving our library across the gym and down the hallway into a newly painted classroom, and then changing what was once the library into my office, shared with Jeff.  No pictures of that until we get a chance to decorate it.  But the door is rather appropriately labeled, "Lounge." (Just kidding, we do work there!)

Things We're Working On

Jeff is working on repairing our computers.  They're all donated and very slow and he's doing everything he can to get them last as long as he can.  I'm SO glad to have an IT guy on the team!  Technology seems to hate me at the most inopportune times.

He's also working on bonding with the kids (especially the upper elementary and junior highers), in the hopes of retaining more of them through the junior high grades.  That's when they get super busy with extra-curricular activities, or when they decide they're too cool to get help with their homework.  But it's also probably the most important 3 years of their lives and lay the groundwork for shaping who they will be when they grow up!  So, in an attempt to keep them engaged, we're trying to think of more motivating ways to keep their attention.  (All ideas are welcome!)

Emily was doing SO much by herself for SO long that now that I'm really in it too, I have absolutely NO idea how she did it!

I'm working on taking over the volunteer coordination for the whole program... which won't actually take full effect until I'm full-time and creating the daily schedules myself.  (Which won't actually happen until I've fundraised all that from viewers like you. *wink, wink* *nudge, nudge*)

Part of that is training new volunteers.  We had one training yesterday and three more coming in the next week, in addition to our regular, monthly training sessions.  Let me know if you want to come!  (liz@pomonahope.org)

Reason #2 this update took so long: I was busy catching up on and learning all the stuff that Emily was doing that she was/is having me take over.

(Reason #3 was along the lines of recovery period and laziness)

There is just so much to do!  But now that there are 3 of us, we can finally move forward instead of just struggling to keep it going as it is!  And that, to me, is exciting!

Funny Stories

The K-3rd graders have been asking to play outside during their gym games lately, and I figure as long as it's not rainy or blistering hot, why not?  So their game the past couple weeks has been "The ground is water and you're the shark!"  When anyone who is not the shark gets tagged, they have to leave the playground and sit on the bench, because they're captured, where they wait for someone who is still free to tag them again.  Does anyone know the name of that game? 

I consented to be the shark for two days, but then told them to have someone else do it, because they cheat.  A lot.

In any case, on day one, our youngest girl was playing and every time I chased after her, her eyes got as wide as she could make them (taking up half her face) and her mouth got as big as she could make it while she screamed and ran away.  I never managed to catch her because, while she's not very fast, I was laughing way too hard at the spectacle to actually tag her.

On another day, one older sister got very protective of her younger sister and started telling everyone that her sister could not leave the playground (where she was safe) because she's little.  The downside to that was that just about everyone got captured, and they needed someone to free them.  That's where this occurred:

"Melina*, go save them!"

**********************************
As the first kids came in to the program on Tuesday... I stuck my tongue out at Elena* (6 year old)
Elena: Hey! I saw that!
Me: Saw what?
Elena: You stuck your tongue out at me!
Me: You're right, I did. Do you still love me?
At this point, Elena gives me this funny, "What are you even TALKING about?!" look.
Elena: Of course! You're nice!

Bible Study

Our high school girls bible study (still looking for a name!) has been meeting regularly for the past 3 weeks!  Our first meeting of the year, we talked about Epiphany.  And last week we started a "Women of the Bible" series.  So it's basically going through the bible by focusing on the important women! 

I got a bible study book about Women of the Bible for Christmas (I asked for it), but now that I have it in my hands, I'm finding that it's written more for married women with kids than it is for all women equally, much less teenage girls.  And their overview of the stories is disappointing.  So, I'm coming up with my own studies, loosely guided by the book (mostly the order, the general location they're talked about in the Bible, and a few questions).  I think I'll start a heading up above for those who may be looking to study what we're studying.

Never thought that I'd be doing this.  God works in mysterious ways!


*Names changed

“Hope is a Verb with its Shirtsleeves Rolled Up.” ~ David Orr

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, Pomona Hope is preparing for some exciting new developments for 2013!  Liz Cowan and Jeff Johannsen are planning to come on staff part time!

Liz will be our Kids and Volunteer Coordinator and Jeff is coming on as our Youth Coordinator.  We are looking forward to having them on board!

Additionally, we are making a long overdue move for our Kindergarten through 3rd graders and our Art Room.  We are planning to move them to the large meeting room that overlooks the gym on the second floor.  This location will be more suitable for classroom work, and will allow the kitchen to be used to its full (and original) capacity.

As you can imagine, there is much to do to facilitate all of these changes, and I'm writing to see if you would be available to lend a hand.

We are planning work days for both dates:

Friday, January 4th (11am-5pm)

Saturday, January 5th (10am-3pm)

Please let me know if you or someone you know might be able to help us ring in the New Year by getting us prepared for Liz and Jeff to have office space and our Troopers and Braves (K-3rd Graders) have an exciting new place to learn and grow!

Pizza and soda will be served for lunch on both dates.

Thank you for all you're doing for Pomona Hope.

Happy New Year!

Emily Budiyanto
Programs Director
Pomona Hope
emily@pomonahope.org

"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!

“Everyone Must Dream. We Dream to Give Ourselves Hope. To Stop Dreaming - Well, That's Like Saying You Can Never Change Your Fate. Isn't That True?” ~Amy Tan

Update on the Junior High Retreat! 

(from Brianne, one of the leaders)

I would say that the retreat was a success! We had five kids on Friday and four on Saturday. I thought they seemed really engaged and were extremely willing to participate; I think we struck a good balance between "hanging out" and actual content for the weekend.

To me, what was perhaps the most telling was our ending activity, where Sarah had all of us write a short story about a time when we were feeling a certain way (e.g. joyful, scared, confused, etc.). We all went around and shared our stories. Though the point made in this activity was that you can't judge people or any situation based off of one piece of information, it really struck me how open the kids were with each other and how willing they were to share about parts of their lives that we don't normally see at Pomona Hope. I think that no matter how much we teach them, building relationships with the kids and helping them build relationships with each other is probably the most important thing we can do. They need a place and people that they feel they belong to/with.

Other than that, I definitely enjoyed myself. We did some out of the box things, like a blindfolded partner obstacle course, and a hospitality game where the kids had to present their snack as if I was coming over for dinner. I think everyone enjoyed the different structures we set up. I'm not sure how much they learned explicitly, but I always enjoy hearing their thoughts about things they most likely don't talk about in school. The kids might not know it, but their perspectives are in such formative stages right now and they're taking in everything around them.

In addition, we got to hang out with some of them at "the feast" afterwards (the dinner hosted by Rock of Faith). Sharing day-to-day life with them, if only for a weekend, was such a delight and privilege. It's easy to get caught up in school and even in IV ministry, so I'm grateful for the time I got to spend away from campus and kind of just hanging out with the kids.

 

 

“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.

“Hey You, Don't Tell Me There's No Hope at All. Together We Stand, Divided We Fall.” ~ Pink Floyd

Funny kid story:  Last Tuesday, I walked into the kitchen at Pomona Hope, where the youngest group of kids was having snack, to hand a note to a volunteer.  When I got inside, one of the more spirited girls in the group ran up to me and asked if she could write on the white board.  The conversation went as follows...

Me: Well, why don't you ask the volunteers here if you can?
Kid: I already did!
Me: So why are you asking me?
Kid: Because they said no!
Me: Well, as much as I admire your persistence, I'm going to have to go with the volunteers on this one.

I figure any parent will identify with that conversation to some degree.

Now, for adorableness!




Halloween 2012

  You're welcome.

They also helped me on an international scavenger hunt that I'm doing on the side, but I can't post pictures of that until it's over.

Now updates:

Pomona Hope had its anuual fundraiser this Saturday night and it went very well!  Really classy.  I got to dress up.  And I got a fancy nametag.  But my favorite part of the night were the presentations.  Joe George, current and founding board member, explained to everyone how it all began.  Emily, Program Director, had beautiful stories about watching the kids grow up over the past few years.  Barbara, beloved volunteer, talked about the personalities of several of the kids.  And Veronica, one of our high school students/volunteers, talked about how much she loved Pomona Hope because of the help she both gets and gives there.  She is so well-spoken and poised, you wouldn't peg her as an 11th grader.  Seriously, she did better up there than I could ever dream to.  Love that kid.

The art being auctioned off was beautiful!  I didn't even get to see it all though, because there were so many people!  It was just a great event all around.

But everything is getting "back to normal" at the program.  Our one different thing coming up this week is Election Day!  While adults all around the country are voting for politicians and issues tomorrow, our 4th, 5th, and some 6th graders will be voting in a mock election as well!  We gave them time to do some research at the computer lab, on who they should vote for according to their take on the issues, by sending the here: Vote Smart.  We also showed them a few episodes of Schoolhouse Rock and explained to them why it's important to vote, and what the world would be like if we didn't get to!  One thing I had to get used to telling them, when they asked "What's the right answer?" was that if there was an obvious right answer, we wouldn't need to vote!

They seem to be excited about it (they probably hear about the elections everywhere they go too).  Should be an interesting result!  And more importantly, they'll be interested in voting for real when their chance comes.