Trip to Frito Lay plant

One of the main objectives of the After-School Academy/University of Values is to prepare kids for their future. We do this by exposing them to new and different experiences, teaching them to greet, and focusing on other social skills.

The kids are impressive. If you walk in the summer program, you will often have 18 little hands stuck out, ready to greet you. This summer we are also focusing on caring and manners with the kids.

Mondays are field trip days. In the spirit of exposing them to new places and new ideas...and in keeping with our focus on Environment and Recycling, they went to the Frito Lay plant. Matt and Steve have been absolutely wonderful in their willingness to take on a group of kids and figure out a way to break down "emissions" to the kids. They brought out their big "rigs" so the kids could explore, honk the horns, and then learn how Frito Lay is trying to keep the big rigs from polluting the air so much.

The kids had a great time. All of the field trip surveys came back saying they enjoyed the field trip and wanted to go back.

What was even better for us was the email we received from Steve the very next day:

Janet - I just wanted to take a moment to commend your group. The Frito team had a lot of fun, however, our hearing may never be the same after all of the horn blowing on the trucks.

Sylvia and all of her helpers did a great job and your students were well behaved, courteous and curious. It is very interesting for us to work with a group of that age. I think we all left thinking it was fun, but don't have the energy to do it everyday. You and your team are doing great work.

Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of it. I hope the kids enjoyed it as much as we did.

Best of luck. Let us know if there is anything else we can do.

Thanks, Steve

We truly appreciate Steve and his team. It's always nice to know how our kids make an impression on people.

Thanks, Steve, Matt, and Frito Lay. Thanks Miss Sylvia and team. And thanks University of Values...for being such great greeters and learners!

Never lose faith!

For the last four months, our After-School Academy has been in limbo. With staff cutbacks and the upcoming demolition of Turner Courts, it has been challenging to figure out how to transition to a new program in Roseland TownHomes.

After growing a program for 8+ years, it's really hard to figure out how it all started and to replicate that. It's also hard because we and those around us expect us to start where we left off--with a full slate of 30 kids. On top of that, we have the challenge of figuring out how to restructure the program with less staff and uncertainty about a location.

We did start, though. The Central Dallas Church was gracious enough to allow us in their facility for as long as we needed. We are partnering with J.W. Ray (thanks to Ms. Brenda Powers, Community Liaison) and have two chess club rotations (thanks to Carmen Chairez, Minority Business Development Association)--20-25 kids in the first class and 8-10 kids in the second class! Jennifer Africawala (CDM Americorps program) helped me figure out how to have 3 Americorps members instead of two...and Kristina Williams, Andricka Lindsay, and Doris Thomas are absolutely wonderful!

Texas Capital Bank (Richard Mauldin) and United Central Bank (Cheryl Gilbert) provide finance classes for our elementary kids and we offer art classes through Theresa Cissell (another Americorps volunteer) and Catherine Hamrick (a Richland art major). And more people keep coming!

Sylvia Baylor has been amazing as she has been so willing to step in to coordinate the program in our transition. It is because of her, as well as the help of Marva Epperson-Brown, Danielle Evans, and Kim Johnson (other CDM staff), that we now have 26 kids enrolled and are growing every day! It is also because of Sylvia that we will now have a reading teacher from J.W. Ray Elementary volunteering with us once or twice a week!

There are more partnerships that I'll tell about in future posts. For now, we are off to a great start!