May 2011

Big news for our 2011 Golf Tournament! In addition to our annual scramble tournament, this year’s event will be an official qualifying tournament for the 2011 Audi Quattro® Cup.  Our winning twosome will go off to compete in the U.S. Final which will take place August 26th-28th at The American Club Resort and Whistling Straits Golf Course in Kohler, Wisconsin! Additional prizes include:AirfareStay at the American Club 5 star resort for two nights and be wined and dined by Audi of America.  If you are interested in qualifying for the Audi Cup or playing on our 3rd annual charity event at the Laurel Creek Country Club, one of South Jersey’s Top Rated Courses, then click here to register.

Peas, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, and flowers– all growing in the Esperanza Garden at 6th & Grant Streets.  Hopeworks is excited to be partnering with the Camden City Children’s Garden, North Camden Residents, and other North Camden Organizations (such as My Brother’s Keeper, Lutheran Social Ministries, and Holy Name School) to bring the Esperanza garden to life!  It’s been amazing to see people come out and enjoy watching their vegetables grow, work together, and turn an ugly abandoned lot into a source of community pride and healthy food.  We are looking forward to a summer filled with new relationships with neighbors and good food.  We are planning a cooking series where we will host chefs to teach the community how to cook the vegetables that we are harvesting.

We recently established a partnership with Bear Staffing in Woodbury, NJ and together have created an exciting new innovation in our youth development and work readiness process. Bear Staffing has worked out an evaluation and interview process for youth who are on track to earn a job here. Youth who are completing our technical training prepare for an interview by practicing with our formation director and by creating a resume. Bear Staffing then interviews each candidate just as they would for any client. After the interview, Bear Staffing completes the rubric and makes a recommendation. If the trainee is recommended for the job, they may then attempt a production test, which demonstrates their technical abilities. If they need more improvement, our formation director creates a plan with the trainee based on Bear Staffing’s evaluation, and, once the trainee completes that plan, he or she will return to Bear Staffing for another interview. So far nine of our trainees took part in their first interviews including Wesley who is pictured here with Bear Staffing COO Gary Johnson. Hopeworks sincerely appreciates having partnerships with business like Bear Staffing. We are grateful for their effort in helping make our youths’ dreams a reality.

With Spring in the air and the flowers blooming, we thought it would be the perfect time to freshen up Hopeworks!  So with a broom in our hands and a smile in our hearts staff, youth, and volunteers all joined together in Spring Cleaning Day this month. We started the day off with a BBQ at the C.R.I.B. for lunch. Grill Master Tarren, did a phenomenal job cooking up some burgers and hot dogs for all to enjoy! After hours worth of cleaning, the place was spotless. One of the benefits of cleaning, was helping to prepare for the Easter party we held with our Hope Through School and Production youth. The party included some tasty treats, an Easter word search puzzle, and a one-egg hunt. Joel, one of our HTS trainees, was the lucky person to find the egg! All around it was a great couple of days and….the place looks great!

Hopeworks college youth are working hard to finish the semester strong. There are several ways that we at Hopeworks are assisting them during this challenging time of the semester:

1. They use a program uniquely designed for Hopeworks to keep track of their upcoming assignments on a weekly basis. Thus, we can generate a report from this program that informs us of what is due just for that week.
2. Weekly, they meet with both the Literacy and C.R.I.B. Director to identify their upcoming assignments.
3. Four times per week they meet with a volunteer to work on their many papers that are due and to prepare for their exams.
4. We keep track of each grade they receive on their tests and exams to ensure that they are performing at a level that reflects how hard they’ve been studying.
5. Each College Youth has no less than 10 required study hours per week in which they come together and study quietly, similar to a study hall.

This is a pretty tight format. But, “with spring in the air and the flowers blooming,” we realize that this can be a tough time to do schoolwork and study for finals. Fortunately, we also have a lot of fun activities to balance the hard work.

Just this week, we:

1. began helping some of the College youth prepare for a 5-day trip to Mexico at the end of the summer
2. had a Community dinner which was open to all members of the surrounding community and all of Hopeworks’ friends and family
3. had a birthday party for one of the Hopeworks’ staff
4. had many opportunities to participate in preparing the new Community garden
5. and had a pizza party for all of the Hopeworks’ trainees

All of these activities make for a fun, yet challenging, atmosphere at Hopeworks, which is just the type of environment in which we all excel.

The team has been selected and the planning has begun for our first ever International Service Trip!  Dante, Jon, Geehem, Ruben and Rhafi all made the cut and are starting to plan for an  August trip to Mexico.  The team will be working with a non-profit called VAMOS! who works with the poor in and around Cuernavaca.  The team will be starting the process of applying for passports, researching the peso/dollar exchange, looking up Montezuma and planning fund raising activities.  Stay tuned for more information about this exciting opportunity for Camden youth to connect to youth around the world!

Twelve Hopeworks staff and youth enjoyed a night out the the Philadelphia Soul Arena Football game last month. Enjoying the dollar hot dogs and the fast paced action, the group had a lot of laughs and vowed to become big time Soul Fans. Thanks to everyone from the Philadelphia Soul for making this great night possible.

What does “Mod Squad,” “Rhapsody of Blue,” and “Coral Wonder” have in common?  These are the names of the three newest quilts that have been given to C.R.I.B. residents by the quilting group, Friends of Franny.  Mary and Christina joined us for dinner on Monday May 2nd, sharing the history of quilting, and why it is so important to them.  They have committed to make a new quilt for each resident who moves into the C.R.I.B. as a way to show that they believe in their success and dreams.  Dante, one of the residents, says, “I appreciate all the time that they took to make the quilts, and the story behind why they are doing it.”  Franny is the name of one of the founder’s uncle, who passed away while he was homeless.  The women began making quilts for homeless men in a shelter, and formed the group in memory of her uncle.  Mary explained that they desire to care for others, even if it can be difficult, “it’s so important to pay it forward in life.”  The different quilts had different personalities, patterns, stories, and names–just like the residents who make up the community here.

Hopeworks is excited to announce that applications are now being accepted for our $1000 Hopeworks College Scholarships.  All current and former Hopeworks youth who have either completed their personal website, worked in production or held a job with us, are eligible.  Thanks to all of our scholarship donors, this year we have 3 One Thousand Dollar Scholarships available.  Download the Hopeworks Scholarship Application.

The Hopeworks Mental Health Commission wrapped up three months of work in April and will begin implementing some new learnings across the organization. The group identified three areas to focus on: Working with Youth and Trauma, Engaging with Youth who Experience Anger Management Issues, Resiliency and Youth, and Partnering with Youth in Progress Not Resistance. The next phase is to start to implement the programmatic reccomendations made by the commission. These include a resiliencsy program and a series of 5 staff trainings. Special thanks to all who participated especially Charles McLister, Christine Szczepanowski, Marita Lind, and Amy Hoch.

Hopeworks ‘N Camden has started planning for our annual Summer Jobs Program.

“Rather than depending on grants that may not be available each year, we’ve developed a grassroots approach that allows us to raise the money ourselves and have fun doing so.” -Father Jeff Putthoff, Executive Director of Hopeworks.

The goal of our Fun ‘N The Sun summer jobs program is to raise $30,000 in order to provide 25 youth jobs for the summer of 2011. Each individual summer job pays $1,200 and each youth will be placed in a job in one of Hopeworks’ departments which include; Web production and GIS mapping and surveying. In preparing for the summer of 2011 we need your help in raising the necessary funds to employ Camden youth in invigorating, supportive, and educational work projects. When you help to sponsor a youth summer job you will also have the satisfaction of knowing that you are creating positive change in the lives of Camden’s youth. Last year our program raised $26,500 and created 23 summer youth jobs and with your help we can enrich two more Camden City youth this summer.