Youth Leaders spent a very cold weekend at Camp Jewell working on the allocations for their small grants program thanks to Iroquois Gas Transmission Systems. Click here for pictures

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What did YOU do this past weekend??? Well I can tell you that “16” Youth Leaders boarded a bus at 8:30 am on Saturday morning at Nolan field in Ansonia and headed out to Camp Jewell in Colebrook Connecticut to fulfill their mission as a Youth Leader and allocate $2,000.

The weather had been a challenge because the of school closings. That had posed quite a gigantic problem to the Youth Leaders who needed to get to and interview the people who had submitted grants. I am aware that our Youth Leaders are clever with their time and talents; however this was truly a trial time but they succeeded.  Only two programs needed to be interviewed by phone and the remaining eight received one on one visits from a team of our Leaders. They had all the information they needed for the interview. Special accolades to YL Co- President’s Rebecca Sheehy and Tom Saksa who worked tirelessly to make sure all the Youth Leaders had their grants and appointments to properly conduct their interviews.

We arrived at Camp Jewell at 10:00 am and as a Camp Jewell protocol, we pulled in and stopped at the welcome center and a staff member jumped on the bus to collect all the needed forms to allow the students to be on Camp. The staff member welcomed everyone and then instructed us to move into the cabins and meet back at the Deeds Room…a familiar term many Youth Leaders will always remember. It’s a room that so many ice-breakers take place and pro-note bags are lined up. Youth Leaders (current and past) who are reading this are smiling! “Pro Note” bags are amazing… Youth Leaders get a chance to write notes to each other with encouraging and positive notes…it’s pretty amazing to see this exercise.  It is one of the highpoints of the weekend when they get a chance to read them… after their ice-breaker games were held they immediately launched into creating their bags. Picture a normal sized brown lunch bag accompanied by colored markers, paste, magazines, scissors and high school students creating themselves of who they are and what they want to do in just 15-30 minutes tops! The bags are then displayed (you cannot read anything in your bag until the bus ride home) in the Deeds Room for the weekend along with pencil and scraps of paper to use. The Youth Leaders write notes to each other with encouraging and positive notes. Funny thing about that is when we are ready to leave on Sunday at 1PM, the notes are stapled and put in one large bag for the Advisor to give out. It has become a tradition that they are handed out when the bus reaches Waterbury.  I someday would like to video their faces as they read the wonderful affirmations that their other Youth Leaders have observed about them and written about.  I do believe that many Youth Leadership Alumni still have their pronote bags…am I right! I’m told it’s the best…I still have all of mine and I am just an Advisor!

Ok, the bags are hung up and it’s time for lunch…food is great at Camp Jewell…something for everyone! Oh…and everyone is looking to get out to do snow tubing but “serious” work needs to take place before they can go out to play in the snow.

Time to break into groups and spend some time debriefing about their interviews with the agencies. Groups traveled to many locations in the dining hall, some found the fireplaces and they all found the best hot chocolate in the land to bring them comfort. The Advisors, including Sara, Scot and Colleen, visited group to group just to offer help if needed.  They spent a good deal of time in discussion and I have to say that they were all extremely open-minded.   They were prepared, used sound logical thinking and it was a success. They engaged in polite and respectful skills during their interview and they took away solid information that they were able to share in the group. The end result was being prepared to enter into the final allocations process that would begin at 9:15am on Sunday morning in the Deeds Room.

They were done with the first phase …they had done their work and now go out and play and in the snow! They were all bundled up and warm as they climbed the tubing hill.  They were so excited to go out and play with their friends. J I should have recorded the laughter and smiles –huge smiles- I saw on all of their faces…the races – sharing the duo tubes. Sarah Parkins raced a Camp Jewell Instructor and beat him! You go Sarah. We’re proud of you!

It’s nearing 3:00pm and you could tell it was getting ‘colder”…I honestly didn’t think it could get any colder. They all headed in for more of the magical warm “hot chocolate” and got warm enough to head out for a sleigh ride which was pulled by two beautiful huge white horses! An inviting layer of warm hay was perfect to sit on. As the horses pulled us up the big hill we toured many of the cabins the Youth Leaders have stayed when they were first entered the program. Camp Jewell has many feet of snow and it was truly a winter wonderland vision. Many Youth Leaders had never been on a sleigh ride before.

After that we had some time before dinner so we headed off to do “archery”. It was GREAT! Only a handful of kids had ever held a bow and arrow before…even this big kid. As another testimonial to how great Camp Jewell staff is …so many shot a bulls-eye…Colleen’s arrow went so fast that it went right through the canvas! The CJ staffer had never seen that before! Had to take a picture!

After dinner we prepared for the famous “Dutch auction” and it was so much fun. It’s a game where you break into groups and take on a group name.  The Staff gives the groups challenges and then awards points to the best! Groups names were: WHERE’S WALDO (one of the kids had a red and white striped polo shirt on-hilarious) another was TEAM AWESOME – another was WALKING HOLIDAY AND Pat AND THE 4 STARFISH!  Some of the challenges were… mime an electrical appliance using all the members(hysterical and nobody got hurt)…play out a famous recording  artist  that the staff had to be immediately recognize…and sing a famous Disney film. And the winner was …..EVERYONE! J Fun –Fun Fun!

It was time to go off to our cabin and call it a day…but they had to have one more cup of hot chocolate. And then there was “Camp Jewell Weekend Director James Waller” who decided to challenge these clever Youth Leaders to his famous table hand slapping game.  YL faces will tell the story. James decided to do a stand up in a circle routine to find a winner and that made it quite fun! The final two standing were Brian and Hannah and the first one to speak was Brain…. Hannah was the winner! J

Back at the cabin and as everyone got their sleeping bags all set…girls on one side of the cabin and boys on the other…they all met out in the common area and it became a fireplace chat. It was very meaningful. One thing that I will long remember is the trust and respect that these Leaders have for one another. Lights out!

It was 6:30 am and you could hear some stirring in the cabin…from the girl’s side- not the boys! We had to make sure that we were all packed up and moved out of the cabin and gear brought to the main hall before breakfast.

A hearty full Camp Jewell breakfast was the perfect way to fuel the Youth Leaders to conduct their allocations.  It was 9:15 and Allocations process began. Margaret was assigned to be the timekeeper, Caitlin Baker was the scribe to run the dollars of what was being spent…all the prep work had been done and they were ready to begin!

We reviewed the mission of the Valley United Way Youth Leadership Program and how they were accepted into the program and given leadership skills that would bring them to this point to enable them to participate in this process. A respected serious tone about the room set in. It was neatly described to all that the first phase of the process was to list their grant name and what their group was recommending for a dollar amount.  After all the requests were logged the group would then be able to go back and one by one is able to talk about each grant and openly share their thoughts.  Great discussions took place. They then reached the final phase which was to decide how they would allocate their funds. Each grant was listed and through Parliamentary Procedure votes were taken. Once again during this process each Youth Leader was able to share their feelings –during the discussion part of the motion - on each grant. They comfortably voted and moved on.

Camp Jewell staff asked to sit in on the process because they had heard about our YL and how they had done their allocations and were so impressed with this process and they had never seen high school students create grants and then disburse funds based on their very own decisions. It’s great to have high school students have a good reputation. (The first time we conducted  our allocations process at  CJ was about 5 years ago and so many staff members were mesmerized…they  had never seen anything like this before)

Advisor Sara and Jr Advisor Colleen were at their posts to log all the projects on the flip chart. It is always important for Youth Leaders to see what is current and what to reflect back upon. To see what was being discussed.

The final votes were cast and as soon as all of the Agencies and Programs are notified we will post the 2010 Youth Leadership Allocations Report.

As I have said to each one of our Youth Leaders – “Leaders lead” …they were accepted into this Program because they are Leaders and what happened at Camp Jewell is an example of the success of this Program. They are Leaders!

A very sincere “Thank You” to Iroquois Gas for providing 100% funding to Valley United Way Youth Leaders to conduct their allocations….they succeeded! 

Patricia Tarasovic
Volunteer Center Director

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Earlier story:

Members of the Valley United Way’s Youth Leadership Program are currently putting their leadership training skills to work as they seek to distribute small venture grants to community organizations in Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, Seymour and Shelton.  The Youth Leadership Venture Grant Program is targeted at assisting organizations that either have or are planning on implementing programs or services that serve the needs of Valley youth.

High School students in the program, who are from public and private high schools in the area, have discussed their thoughts about current needs they want to focus their grants on as of critical concern that are affecting youth today: teen pregnancies, breast cancer awareness, drunk driving, bullying, going green personal fitness/nutrition, food and  diabetics awareness.

A “Request for Proposal” (RFP) is available on the Valley United Way website.  Members evaluate the proposals they have received and make a visit to the agencies to meet the Executive Director and discuss the proposal in depth.  Recommendations are then brought to the full Youth Leadership membership for approval and grants are given to those that are determined to be appropriate and fit within the guidelines the Youth Leaders have identified.   This “allocations process” is modeled after the procedure followed by United Ways throughout the country when they distribute campaign funds to their member or partner agencies. This year the Youth Leaders will travel to Camp Jewell, a YMCA Camp in Colebrook Connecticut, to hold a weekend long event which will cover many leadership team building initiatives as well as full discussion of the grants requests. The Youth Leaders will complete the weekend and return with their well thought out decisions for fund allocations.

The Youth Leaders will attend Camp Jewell thanks to a special grant from Iroquois Gas Transmission.

Since 1990, when the program first began distributing grants, Valley United Way’s Youth Leadership members have distributed over $ 50,000 to the community for new and or existing and innovative programs. The total pool of money available this year is $2,000.

The Youth Leadership Venture Grant Program is currently accepting RFP’s.  If your nonprofit organization has an innovative program/service that focuses on one (or more) of the identified needs, please complete the on-line application.

If you have questions please contact Patricia Tarasovic, Youth Leadership, Director 203 926-9478 or patricia.tarasovic@valleyunitedway.org