"Americans are not generous because we are rich; we are rich because of our generosity to one another." International author and scholar Dr. Claire Gaudiani offered the keynote address to a gathering of 120 women and men at United Way Women’s Initiative Breakfast, April 26, at The New Haven Lawn Club.
The cafeteria at Covidien's North Haven location was filled with employees and non-profit partners with one goal: to give employees the chance to connect with volunteer opportunities in their community with a cause they are passionate about. Volunteering is part of Covidien's philanthropic focus to address the needs of the communities where employees live and work to significantly impact a community's well being.
With a sunny afternoon, sparkling lights in the cafeteria, and everyone dressed to the nines, Wexler-Grant’s first “Dancing With My Star” event was a rousing success.On April 13, 2012, all students were asked to bring someone who is important to them to the dance, someone they consider their “star”, and write down why they chose that person. One student wrote that she invited her father because he is her Super-Man. Another student, who brought his mother, wrote that his mom was his star because she loved him so much. Others even picked their teachers.
Each Tuesday and Thursday after school in Mrs. Williams’s room at Wexler-Grant, you will find a curious group of students. Some days you’ll find them pretending to be statues. Other days they will be playing a name game, then segueing into writing exercises and creating profiles of imaginary animals or objects in the room, and giving them a family and human emotions. One student envisioned a laptop named Contala, who was 18, from a family of 2,494 sisters and 3,249 brothers, who wants a new flash drive and fears viruses from other laptops.
Submitted by Amy Faenza on
Nearly 40 Comcast employees shared their time and talent on Saturday, April 21, 2012 to install Branford's first Born Learning Trail at Foote Memorial Park. Local employees volunteered as a part of the 11th Comcast Cares Day, an annual day of company-wide community service. This event launched many celebrations during the Week of the Young Child and illustrates Comcast's commitment to making a difference in the community it serves.
Submitted by Deede Dixon on
Here’s a challenge: what kind of game can you create with a paper towel roll, a plastic spoon, tape, pipe cleaners, paper clips, yarn, rubber bands, white beans, a plastic cup, popsicle sticks, and a marble? Any ideas?
Last Thursday afternoon, Doreen Abubakar facilitated the afterschool program called Kids Quest to Invent. She's a volunteer facilitator of the CT Invention Convention, and she comes to the Troup School every other week to lead the program. She gives Troup students in grades 3 to 7 the supplies and one hour to tackle a challenge. At the first class of the spring, students were challenged to make a cup slide down a fishing line and drop pennies at one specific point. Students learn that a plastic cup can be used for much more than simply to hold water. And paper clips are not strictly used to hold paper -- you can straighten one out, and use it to poke a hole in the paper towel roll to create a noise-maker! Or, you can turn it into a spring that causes the toy to jump. What other ideas are there? Ooh, that’s sounds great, too: tie it to a string and try to hook it onto the straw.
There will be exciting and free opportunities throughout the week for families to learn and play together in communities throughout Connecticut. Please click on the following links to learn about some of the fun events in Branford, East Haven and New Haven! For further information about events in Hamden, please contact Sally Nutcher about the Hamden Youth Services Preschool events at 203 777-2610.
The Week of the Young Child™ is an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The purpose of the Week of the Young Child is to focus public attention on the needs of young children and their families and to recognize the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs. The 2012 Week of the Young Child is April 22–28 and the theme is Early Years Are Learning Years®.
Submitted by Cara Rosner on
Less than two hours into my new position as External Affairs Officer at United Way of Greater New Haven, I got a first-hand glimpse Tuesday at the powerful impact programs we support can make in people’s lives.
I was fortunate my first day on the job to visit Emerge, a program that helps put ex-offenders back to work and, more importantly, form a solid foundation and network of confidantes that allow them to maintain a stable life outside of prison. We visited an Emerge work crew at one of their job sites, a New Haven home where they were doing everything from installing insulation in the basement to building a backyard stone wall.
Submitted by Brittany Bergstrom on
This Saturday, April 21, the girls of the Boost! Service Corps Team will brave New Haven's landscape in a 20-mile bike ride in the Fourth Annual Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride! The rocks in Rock to Rock are the two ginormous land masses that jut out of the ground: East and West Rock. After hearing about Rock to Rock from United Way, an event co-sponsor, our team decided to take on the challenge, considering that many of the great non-profits which benefit from this event have programs in the schools Boost! works with.
Spring came early for the families at Ronald McDonald House!! As we had such a beautiful early stretch of spring like temperatures in mid-March, employees from General Electric, led by Peter DiMauro, came to the house and did a bit of spring cleanup on their property. Volunteers raked leaves, swept the parking lot, cleaned up brush and prepped the property for the upcoming spring planting.
Submitted by Jan McCray Price on
As United Way continues to work towards advancing the common good by creating opportunities for a better life through our focus on income (one of our three identified building blocks for a good life), help for individuals and families in our region to increase financial stability takes on new life with the expansion of Smart About Money (SAM) budget coaching program to SAM 3.0!
Published in The New Haven Register on Saturday, April 7, 2012 By Steve Higgins, Special to the Register.
The Neighbor-to-Neighbor LifeLine fund-raising program distributed $490,000 to support area nonprofit organizations this year. Since the program started in 2009, it has raised $2 million to provide area residents with emergency food, shelter, energy assistance and other needs.
Published in The New Haven Register on Thursday, March 29, 2012. By Register Staff
The Neighbor-to-Neighbor LifeLine program will distribute about $500,000 in grants to area organizations that serve residents affected by the economic downturn, the United Way of Greater New Haven announced today.
The program was formed by the United Way and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven to help meet emergency housing and hunger needs in the region.
For six weeks Metropolitan Business Academy (MBA) students worked with a visiting artist from Artspace, a local non-profit organization that presents visual art and educates the public and the art community. The artist, Amy Jean-Porter, has drawn over 1,200 species of animals and her work has been shown around the world. Students at Metropolitan Business Academy greatly appreciate the opportunity to work with Ms. Jean-Porter in Art Club.
Amy Casavina Hall, Senior Director of Income and Health Initiatives, talks about what is happening in Greater New Haven related to housing. She discusses housing affordability and homeless in Connecticut and how widespread the issues are in our region. The conversation includes the origins of individual and family homelessness and the pipeline of challenges and services that people encounter when they need help.
The Augusta Lewis Troup School has many programs after school each day, and three are practices for different bands. The Troup Band Director, Andy Maust, leads three groups of students after school on different afternoons: the 5-6 grade concert band, 7-8 concert band, and 6-8 jazz band. These sessions begin with one hour of homework help, which is then followed by one hour of musical practice. This programming gives Troup students the opportunity to learn new songs, improve musical skills, and build community among classmates. The Troup band after school sessions demonstrate the Boost!
United Way of Greater New Haven and New Haven Public Schools announced the expansion of Boost! at the March 26th New Haven Board of Education meeting. Boost!, a partnership between United Way of Greater New Haven, the City of New Haven and the New Haven Public Schools, is a community and family-focused strategy within New Haven's nationally recognized School Change Initiative.
Submitted by Amy Townsley on
I first read Robert Putnam’s essay “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” when I was in college and quickly brushed-off his conclusion that the decline in social capital over the last 25 years impacted not only civic participation and democracy, but ultimately economic growth. I believed at the time that his analysis of the decline in civic engagement was nothing to be alarmed by and a shift in what civic engagement looked like was to be expected.
