It has been a VERY SPECIAL summer filled with wonderful experiences for the kids who have participated in our summer programs at Winthrop House and Camp Kinneywood - and for the Girls Inc staff and volunteers!
Let me start at the end and work back... a gathering of about 150 proud parents, families, staff and sponsors at Clark University on Friday night celebrated this year's Bruce Wells' Upward Bound scholars. Two of the young women who were honored - Akuah and Dora, pictured with me - honored us with a great two-week internship program here at Winthrop House!! They attended meetings, helped Anne Sadick with the database updating and input, supported program staff with prep and supplies, did research on other Girls Inc programs and named the two new programs we are launching this fall: Girls In Action and Girls Inc Achievers. They will continue to be part of Girls Inc this coming year as they have been selected as the youth representatives to the Girls Inc Board of Directors. We know that they will add SO MUCH depth and provide very important feedback for our planning!
In addition to these FABULOUS interns,
- we had a very successful five week program at Camp Kinneywood,
- a very active program at Winthrop House that included the Lady Leonardos and lots of field trips,
- Youth Net programming three nights a week,
- the very successful Wheels to Water child and family swim program with over 750 swims logged in our pool over a 6 week period,
- 11 interns from Children's Friends' School Aged Moms' Program who sorted, filed, mailed and gardened
- we hosted a work group from WPIs Camp Reach who redesigned our computer lab,
- and got our picture in the T&G as living art at the Art in the Park in Elm Park.
WHEW and WOW!!
It's hard to believe that at the beginning of the summer we were very uncertain about how we were going to be able to run some of the programs!! We did it because Girls Inc's many friends stepped up and answered our appeal for support and provided a wonderful, great summer for the kids - and the staff. Through their generosity, Girls Inc was able to award over $25,000 in scholarships and aid to kids who would not otherwise been able to attend these programs.
These friends include:
- Deborah Penta and her nonprofit organization FLIC who made a leadership challenge grant and the two generous donors who matched that challenge;
- Val Loring and Warner Fletcher at the Stoddard Foundation who supported Girls Inc for the Wheels to Water program and Camp Kinneywood, the Friendly House staff who ran the Wheels part of the program and the workgroup with Manager Mike and James that coordinated the effort;
- Susan Sullivan who submitted her supportive letter to the editor of the T&G about Camp Kinneywood;
- the Worcester Community Action Council and WIA workers' program;
- the teacher from Sullivan who made a generous gift that allowed kids to go to camp;
- the returning friend who supported our Lady Leos - and friends at the Worcester Art Museum, Mechanics Hall and UMass STEM lab who participated in the program
- hundreds of other individuals, corporations and who generously gave so that the needs of many more kids would be met
- and our staff worked hard and long and wonderfully to make it a special summer for the kids!
It's hard to believe that school starts in 2 weeks! We are cleaning up Winthrop House and getting ready for our afterschool programming! Call us and find out how you can get involved!
Girls Inc is awesome!
Cathi