July 2011

What a great day for golf and hope! One hundred and forty four golfers teed off at the Third Annual Hopeworks Charity Golf Classic on June 6th, 2011 at the Laurel Creek Country Club! From the exciting “Fire Engine Ball Drop”  to the tradition of being led onto the course by an authentic bagpiper, this event is like no other. Sponsored by Audi, everyone was treated to test drives in the latest Audi models and the days winner qualified to play in the 2011 Audi quattro® Cup Finals at The American Club Resort and Whistling Straits Golf Course in Kohler, Wisconsin! This year’s event was our most successful thus far and brought in over $136,000.!   Thank you to everyone who participated with special thanks to Tom McCaully, Jerry Miller, and our hard working Golf Committee.

My name is Michael Sontag and I am excited to join the Hopeworks team as Chief Operating Officer. Since my introduction to Hopeworks earlier this spring, I have been impressed by the passion and commitment of everyone that I’ve met from the staff members to the youth to Hopeworks’ partners and supporters. I believe that important work  is being done here and I am looking forward to being  a part of it.

My wife Elizabeth and I have 3 children ages 22, 15 and 13. We have been active in our parish of Saints Peter and Paul in Turnersville, NJ. For a number of years we have been members of a PreCana team working with young engaged couples to help them prepare for marriage. I have also been involved in youth sports – coaching track and soccer for ages 7-15. I enjoy working with youth and I am happy to have that as the focus of my work.

As the COO of Hopeworks I plan to help the organization continue to improve the opportunities that it provides for the youth of Camden.

July kicks off our summer programming here at Hopeworks and there is a lot going on each and every day. Our theme this year revolves around food!  Healthy Food! From our Community Garden, to weekly cooking demonstrations held at the C.R.I.B to a Foodspotting.com Mission, our youth will be learning, discussing, sharing and eating all kinds of delicious information about food.  And YOU can follow US! Our youth will also be tweeting, blogging and posting videos on YouTube throughout the summer as we learn how to connect to the world outside of Camden through social media. Follow us on twitter!

GIS
Our GIS team will be working on two exciting mapping projects. First they will be creating an interactive on-line map of all the Community Gardens in Camden. They will also be busy working for Coopers Ferry Development Association doing a parcel survey of North Camden.  They will be collecting attributes for each of the 2500+ parcels that make up the neighborhood, including use, vacancy, and condition.

HTS
Our Hope Through School youth will be learning the art of video this summer by creating short films about gardens, nutrition, cooking, calories and more. Check out the Hopeworks Channel on YouTube as videos are posted and connections are made with other youth filmmakers and foodies. Learnings in literacy will be based around the projects youth are working on: Video and social media. There will be a focus on scriptwriting, researching and writing reviews and opinions.

College
Seven of our youth are taking summer classes at Camden County College while also working in internships. Chris is loving his internship at CCMUA, working closely with its Deputy Executive Director, Andrew Kricun. The rest of our college crew hold internships here in our web business and are completing work this summer on sites for clients such as Loyola Academy in St. Louis and St. Joseph’s Pro Cathedral right here in Camden.

C.R.I.B.
Cooking demonstrations will be held each week at the CRIB for all interested youth and community members. C.R.I.B. manager Alaina Cronkright and volunteer Kathleen Duffy will be using lots of the food harvested from our gardens as the starting point for their demonstrations. If you are interested in participating contact Alaina.

Symantec Week
Our summer wraps up with all kinds of activities to be held during out Symantec Week at Hopeworks from August 23 through 25. This year we are partnering with SCRIBE Video to host a Street Films festival; we’ll be visiting Wall Street and NASDAQ, doing community service and hosting a community training where we’ll teach interested organizations about Social Media!

So to keep up with all of the action follow us on twitter, check out our website and like us on facebook. And THANK YOU to all of our grantors, donors and sponsors who help to make this summer a time of learning, food and hope for all of our youth!

The Esperanza Community Garden at 6th & Grant has come to life with residents meeting to water plants, point out new tomatoes on the vine, and more. We will soon have more zucchini than we know what to do with! So far we’ve harvested a variety of lettuce, collard greens, broccoli, and spinach. The sunflowers, pumpkins, squash, onions, tomatoes, peppers and more will be producing fruit before we even know it. This month we are especially grateful for a grant given to us for new garden supplies by the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Camden and Shaping NJ.

We’re looking forward to some community cooking events that are planned to coincide with the harvest starting later this month. One of the neatest things about the garden is that it hasn’t only been growing food for the community- but it’s been a place of building new relationships with our neighbors. On any evening of the week you can stop by the garden to hear what people are cooking for dinner, what new plants have grown in their plot, and more. Stop by and check it out!

Hopeworks is excited to announce that Director of Operations Sean Dougherty has a new position at Hopeworks. Sean is launching Hopeworks Video, a full service video production company that can handle all of your video needs. Sean brings 20 years and 5 Emmys worth of video experience to Hopeworks and he and his youth team will be glad to put together programming to help you market your business, increase your donors, advertise your services or to simply connect to your customers in a unique and personal way.  Just check out some of Hopeworks videos to get an idea of what we can do. For more information email Sean.

The new 2011 maps have arrived at Hopeworks! The map team delivered 5,000 copies of the new edition to dozens of businesses and to several distribution locations around the city. You can find these locations at on our Camden Map Distribution page. Contact Tarren Anderson if you are interested in being a distribution location for the map. Also, if you advertised with us this year, be sure to swing by and get your stack of maps. This year’s map features use of QR codes and a detailed view of center city located on the reverse side of the map. We hope everyone enjoys their maps!

Recently, a talented team of technology consultants from Accenture demonstrated the work they have done for Hopeworks. In an effort to help our program understand both donor and trainee performance, Accenture is working on a series of statistical analytics using SAS Visual Data Discovery that interface with our current use of Salesforce.com. The members of the Accenture team volunteer their time under the company’s corporate citizenship skills-based volunteer projects initiative. Accenture has offices here in Camden, and, while many of the project’s consultants are based in either Camden or Philadelphia, the team involves members from across the East Coast. Hopeworks was fortunate to have Lori McKaig, an Accenture senior executive and executive vice president from the Camden office, approach us with the generous offer of help. The end product produced by Accenture will greatly enhance our ability to work with both trainees and donors in a productive, meaningful way. More updates to come.

For the past eight weeks, Hopeworks trainees have learned the ins and outs of starting a business by participating in a venture with Rutgers University, generously funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The first phase of this initiative used food to teach trainees about planning, preparing and marketing a healthy snack to members of the Hopeworks community. Trainees rotated through the various parts under the direction of seasoned entrepreneur and Hopeworks volunteer Peter Anderson. Peter brought to the project his vast experience in starting businesses and used interactive demonstrations to point out key points of the entrepreneurial process. Now that the first phase is complete, two teams of trainees will be creating their own business plans and testing their ventures through a micro-finance loan included in the grant to test the profitability of each venture. We are excited to participate in this unique opportunity.

June 4th was warm , sunny and full of hope at Hopeworks when 6 volunteers from IT Evolution showed up with shovels, paint brushes and lots of energy. This was the Third Annual IT Evolution volunteer day and the IT folks teamed up with 6 Hopeworks youth to spread a ton of mulch, plant and trim up our gardens and paint a wall on Grant St. It was a great day and special thanks to Michelle and everyone who gave their time and their talents with such great spirit! We are already looking forward to next year!

In May, three trainees, Rushelle, Ruben and Geehem, received the Good Citizenship Award from the Union League of Philadelphia. The award, which the League has given since 1946, seeks to recognize high school juniors who demonstrate “good citizenship as manifested by a cooperative attitude, self-control, perseverance, good sportsmanship and efforts to uphold the best traditions and principles of the American way of life.” Rosie, Ruben and Geehem joined with other recipients from 47 other organizations from across the Delaware Valley for a day dedicated to citizenship. The activities included presentations, leadership activities and a mock trial at the Federal courthouse in Philadelphia. The League then provided them with dinner and an individually engraved medal. Watch Rosie talk about the experience.

The C.R.I.B. welcomes two new staff to our Weekend Presence Team- Nick and Molly. Both have a few words to share about themselves! Nick shares, “I’m currently enrolled at Rutgers University studying business marketing in aspirations of one day becoming a successful CEO. I enjoy being an inspiration to others, running, and enjoying the company of good friends. Here at the C.R.I.B. I’m excited to see what the future has in store for these young adults who also have high hopes for their futures.”

Molly is also excited to be here and says, “Growing up, my dad was in the Air Force which meant moving every 2-3 years. I have been fortunate to have seen much of the world at a young age, as well as explore many cultures. After graduating from George Mason University in 2008, I had the intense desire to work in the inner-city and through Urban Promise Ministry I was given the opportunity to serve in the city of Camden from 2008-2009. Interested in youth and community development, I find myself excited to help more youth in Camden connect to the C.R.I.B.”

TD Bank’s Affinity Membership Program offers an easy way for you to contribute to Hopeworks.  Help support our fund raising efforts by joining TD Bank’s Affinity Membership Program, your participation earns us an annual donation based upon the number of members enrolled.  There are no costs involved AT ALL.

HOW IT WORKS
TD Bank will make an annual contribution to our organization based on the average balance of your accounts! Applicable accounts include:

• Checking / Savings
• Money Market
• Certificate of Deposit
• Retirement

SIGN UP TODAY!
Existing TD Bank customers just need to tell their branch that they want to sign up for Hopeworks Affinity Program and TD Bank will take care of the rest! Contact Yesenia for more information

GIS Director, Tarren Anderson, attended an ESRI developers meet-up in Center City Philadelphia. It was a great opportunity to meet with other developers working with GIS in the area. Tarren presented to the group on the DCCB issue submission system and Camden City Map projects. There were a number of interesting topics presented by other attendees, including Open Street Map and other online mapping displays. Many thanks to Nick from ESRI for putting on a great event.

For the past 5 months Hopeworks has been working on its annual Fun N the Sun fund raising campaign, which focused on raising $30,000 in order to employ 25 youth this summer. Our campaign closed on May 31st and we were able to meet our goal of $30,000 and 25 youth jobs for the first time in 2 years! Congratulations to all of the winners and thanks to all of our sponsors and supporters who helped make this possible!