November 2011

Father Jeff has been asked to be a guest lecturer for the Transforming Education Through Emerging Technologies graduate class in Harvard University’s School of Education on November 21st. Hopeworks has been working with professor Uma Natarajan on how we can use gamification strategies in our technology curriculum at Hopeworks. Dr. Natarajan visited Hopeworks and was impressed with how our trainees can track their own progress through dashboards and share their information with other trainees through social media such as Salesforce’s Chatter. Hopeworks and Dr. Natarajan are working together to implement some gamified tests as well.   See more about gamification at Hopeworks  in our Bunchball article below.

Our service trip to Mexico in August was such a success that we are going back! Hopeworks staff, trainees and volunteers are headed back to Cuernavaca, Mexico in January to work with a group called VAMOS. Led by DJ and Ruben, who went in August, the group is in the middle of fundraising for their trip as well as planning the itinerary. “Our last trip left such an impression with me that I promised the children there that we would be back with vitamins and more help,” said Ruben. DJ remembers, “I thought that I was going there to help change lives but they changed mine.” If you want to help make this trip happen please e mail Sean Dougherty at sean@hopeworks.org!

When you apply game mechanics and techniques to the way that you engage your audience, that’s gamification. At Hopeworks, we have a few different audiences, and the fine folks at Bunchball have decided to partner with us, sharing their gamification platform, called Nitro, so that we can make our technology training even better for our youth. Nitro integrates with Salesforce, which we use for tracking the progress of all of our youth, and will soon be applied to our online curriculum. We’re excited to see the improvements that will come to our training and grateful to Bunchball for their generosity.

Our favorite time of the year is almost here! The Hopeworks Holiday Open House will be taking place on Monday, December 19th 11am-6pm. Please take some time out of your Monday to join us while youth lead tours, talk about Hopeworks and show off the C.R.I.B.  Come connect with those in the community who believe in the mission of Hopeworks. With the wonderful aroma of holiday pastries in the air, we hope to see you here!

Special thanks to Dennis McNally, S.J. of St. Joseph’s University, Professor of Fine Arts, for his generosity in allowing us to display three meaningful pieces of art that are a part of a series. Each one of these pieces are destined to catch your attention when you walk in the front door of the C.R.I.B. due to their size and the emotion that you can see in the paintings. Make sure you come by to see them! These new pieces, along with a new ceramic piece from Zola Bryen, professor at Rutgers University, have given us the opportunity to re-arrange the art that we have been collecting over the past year and a half! We are astounded at how much art we have, and even more amazed that we still have room for more! Check out some photos here. We are beginning to display art on four month rotations. If your, or an artist you know, would like to exhibit their artwork at the CRIB for our next four month rotation, let us know! We are especially looking for sculptures, pottery and tapestries.  The art we display gives the CRIB life in a new, refreshing, and sometimes challenging way.

One of our special volunteers, Dr. Joseph Perrone, D.D.S., of Moorestown, has been working overtime for our trainees. Graciously, Dr. Perrone has offered his professional talents to tend to long-festering dental issues faced by many of our trainees. It is hard to concentrate on web design or college if your teeth hurt. We are extremely grateful for the time and attention he has given our trainees. Everyone has returned with big, bright smiles and thankful hearts. Thank you, Dr. Perrone, for all that you continue to do.

Accenture continues to offer its awesome technical expertise to Hopeworks. A team of over 16 consultants have volunteered their time to help us strengthen our program through deeper understandings of our trainee and donor data. As part of the project, Accenture even found a solution that streamlines our data uploads and saves us time. We are amazed by the knowledge and insight the team from Accenture brings. As part of Accenture’s Corporate Citizenship Skills Based Volunteer Services, this project will deliver a metric that helps us understand a trainee’s overall performance in all aspects of our program, along with a metric that will score our donors in frequency and giving trends. These two metrics will be generated through SAS Visual Data Discovery tools, which SAS has generously donated to the team and Hopeworks. Accenture is ensuring that SAS and Salesforce work together through a series of innovative connections.

On November 1st the C.R.I.B. had a special celebration. Two residents moved in, Lewis and Dante, and we celebrated Jon’s one year anniversary. A few days before moving in Lewis, a psychology major, reflected on how he was feeling in this video. Since moving in he says that it has been “exciting, there are tons of new experiences that I am looking forward to.” He states that he was drawn to the CRIB because of the structure, “The fact that there is structure drew me to move in, I needed it to improve in school.” Dante shares that moving back into the CRIB this month is a good thing for him. When asked why he says, “because of the stability that is needed to be successful in college along with the positive energy and atmosphere. The CRIB promotes good living habits through the cooking demos, grocery shopping and budgeting, and community meetings.” Jon is excited about being the first to live in the C.R.I.B. for a year. He reflects, “throughout my first year here, the CRIB has helped me become more professional, to develop a strong support system, and to value community.” Congrats to these three young men as they take steps each day towards their dreams while living in community with one another.

Thanks to United Water for sending staff member Sean Dougherty to a management education conference for non-profit executives called “New Strategies for Increasing Corporate Support.” Held in Charleston, SC, the forum held sessions on sponsorships, cause-related marketing and building corporate-non-profit partnerships. Sean was able to introduce Hopeworks to a lot of agencies and make many lasting connections.

Thanks to Share our Strength’s Cooking Matters program and the Food Bank of South Jersey,the C.R.I.B. has been full of healthy meals, nutrition lessons, and wonderful smells. From homemade pizza to stuffed peppers we’ve learned a lot of great things about the importance of protein in our diet, and how much fat is in a Whopper at Burger King! Each class involved a local chef, our nutritionist Jocelyn, and a coordinator from the Food Bank. The class finished with an Iron Chef competition. The trainees broke into groups and had to come up with a meal using the ingredients available. Awards were given out to the Most Nutritious Meal, Most Ambitious Meal, and Most Well-Balanced Meal. Next month we’re looking forward to some Holiday baking classes! If you are interested in being involved, let Alaina know at alaina@hopeworks.org.

Recently, one of our trainees put forth a tremendous effort in literacy and earned her GED. Sierra Thomas, 17, passed her GED in September. She also finished her personal website in our training and is ready to start college in January. We are proud of her determination and hard work. Her family joined us at our Annual Celebration of Accomplishments as we recognized this outstanding young woman.

Five staff members had the opportunity to attend a weekend conference in New York in November. It was a conference on Group Relations and the focus was Authority and Presence. It was a great opportunity for us to study our own behavior as it happens  within a group. There were large group settings of up to 80 members and small groups of 10 or less members where a wide range of topics were discussed with the purpose of prompting the members to discover who we become when working in groups and how our own behavior shifts when we take leadership. It was a great experience and each of the members left weary from the long hours and challenging work of the conference but also with the energy of the opportunity to apply what we’ve learned in our work with the youth of Camden.

On October 26th, GIS Director Tarren Anderson gave a presentation on asset mapping at the 2011 OFBI Expo in Trenton. Also presenting at this session was The Relief Bus, who gave a great presentation on their service database and support for those in need. Tarren’s talk covered recent Hopeworks GIS projects like the DCCB Map, North Camden Property Survey and our Camden Street Map. Both sessions of the presentation were well attended, where folks asked a wide variety of questions about the projects and how they could get more information. Hopeworks thanks the OFBI for the invitation and we look forward to presenting again next year!