“Woodsmen would never say no to an opportunity to help…,” says Travis Gomez-Phillips. A few weeks ago, Travis along with 3 other members of the Colby Woodsmen Team helped out a local Waterville resident named Deb by chopping a little over a chord of wood for her. After working for around four hours, the four of them ate lunch with Deb. We, in the CVC, wanted to thank all four of them for their help in the community. We really appreciate it and we know Deb does too.
We have a great opportunity this week for you: gift wrapping at the Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers in Waterville. We set aside two days, Thursday and Friday from 9am-12pm, so please sign up using this FORM if you can volunteer. You can indicate on the form what times you are able to help out if you cannot do the entire 3 hours. Thanks!
Educare Language Mentors is finally up and running! We have four mentors each working in different classrooms for a few hours every week. Some mentors play games with the children and find ways to integrate Spanish vocabulary into their conversations. While another mentor has worked to transform their classroom into the perfect setting to foster bilingual growth. The kids have been very receptive, and love the presence of a new face in the classroom. One of the teachers had laid out a foundation for the use of both Spanish and English in the classroom with the translation of a classic children’s song, “What’s the Weather?” So far, the goal has not been to single out the children who’s family members speak another language, but it has been to make all of the children in the classroom comfortable with the presence and use of a new language. We look forward to watching the progress of the classrooms and the development of the childrens’ language skills.
We are still looking for a mentor who speaks Mandarin to help out in a classroom! If anyone is interested, please contact Caitlin Sperzel at csperzel@colby.edu.
We are looking for someone to apply to be a CVC assistant director. To access more information and the application, click here to visit the CVC’s hiring page. Completed applications and resumes should be sent to the CVC (cvc@colby.edu) by Thursday, November 15. As always, if you have any questions feel free to email us at cvc@colby.edu.
The Colby Volunteer Center’s Hospice Volunteers of the Waterville Area (HVWA) program has really gotten up and running this semester. HVWA offers bereavement support to those in their final stages of life and grief support to those who have lost a loved one. The partnership between the CVC and HVWA began last spring, and this semester, we have recruited eight new trainees for groups and direct care – this doubles the number of Colby volunteers at HVWA at present. This is a great accomplishment, and we are enthusiastic about Colby’s interest in these programs – be it through the eight new people who are now certified hospice volunteers, or through the twenty people interested in volunteering for HVWA in some way.
Hope’s Place, which runs support groups for grieving children, started up its eight-week fall session in late September, and now we are in the final two weeks of the session. This semester, we have five Colby facilitators working with eight members of the Waterville community running Hope’s Place. Hope’s Place’s next session will begin the first week of JanPlan. People are also volunteering weekly for the hospice direct care program.
We are incredibly excited to announce that we will be hosting a fundraiser for HVWA the week after Thanksgiving! HVWA puts all of its money directly towards helping those who need it, and as a result they are in dire need of many supplies for their organization as well as gas money and help paying their electric bill. We will be selling Colby Christmas ornaments the week after Thanksgiving to raise money for HVWA, and we are aiming to get monetary donations as well to help them through this holiday season. We are looking for volunteers to help us with preparation and tabling, so please contact either Priscilla McCelvey or Peggy Meyer if you are interested in helping!
This year’s Colby-lead Hardy Girls groups are finally off to a strong start! We have been working hard with Jackie Dupont, of Hardy Girls Healthy Women, to match co-facilitators (we call them “muses”) with different schools and age groups (from 4th-8th grade) throughout the greater Waterville area and beyond. Most of our muses have gone to two or three meetings with these groups so far. We loosely follow a curriculum that teaches media literacy, activism, and leadership development skills though discussion and activities. We have 20 groups, more than ever before, so it is looking to be a promising and busy year!
On October 27th, Hardy Girls Healthy Women held their annual fundraiser, the Freaky 5K! There was great turn-out, and the race itself was quite fun. This event is not directly connected to the Colby muses; however, we did help out by tabling to get sign-ups and participating in the race ourselves!
Throughout the semester, we hold check-in meetings for our muses. On November 5th, we held a continuing education style meeting where we discussed difficult situations that muses might encounter in group. We invited CCAK mentors with female mentees to join us because the information could be helpful to them too. We had a great turn out and was able to share some helpful ideas!
Thursday and Friday, November 8 and 9, 2012
Where: Goodwill Hinkley
What: Festival of Tree Fluffers
When: 9:00am-4:30pm (you don’t have to go for the entire time)
Number of Volunteers Needed: As many as possible
Information: As a tree fluffer you will be helping set up 15 artificial trees that will be decorated by local organizations and artists. This is a great activity for a large group of friends.
To sign up, fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/a/colby.edu/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGlxVjdpbHNLMGJmQTFLNG1PZmpBX0E6MQ
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO SIGN UP FOR JOHNSON DAY!
https://docs.google.com/a/colby.edu/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHNFSnQ3MnhrT1hxV09EamI4Q3Y5cGc6MQ
We wanted to take a moment to highlight the successful events the CVC has had in October:
1. On Saturday, Hardy Girls Healthy Women (HGHW) had a Freaky 5K walk/run. The turnout was tremendous and the costumes were amazing. Congratulations to HGHW for raising $15,000 off the event! Although there are countless people to thank, we would like to give a special shout out to….
- HGHW Program Leaders (Laura, Brittney, Jamie) and their volunteers for tabling and helping with the event
- The Women’s Indoor Track Team for helping set up
- The Alpine Ski Team for lining the course
- Men’s Hockey and Women’s Lacrosse Teams for running
- ALL the runners and walkers
Be sure to also check on the article in the Morning Sentinel:
2. On Sunday from 1-4, Pulver was full of little kids running around and having a great time at the annual Halloween Extravaganza. In addition to some incredible costumes, there was face painting in the Pugh Center, cookie decorating in LoPo, a haunted house in Page, and games and more in the Pulver Pavillion Area.
*Thank you to everyone who made these events so successful!
Check out the photos from these two events!
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In other news…
3. Evening sandwich had a successful Food Day raffle on Friday.
4. The Helping Hands Food Drive started collecting donations on Friday at Food Day. In partnership with Sodexo and Colby-Waterville Alliance, the CVC is helping table to collect money and cans for the annual Helping Hands Food Drive. The donations will be going to food pantries in mid-Maine.
5. On Saturday, the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter had its “fall festival,” which involved making delicately decorated cupcakes. Thank you to the five volunteers: the four members of the Rotaract Club led by Karen Chen and Courtney Klein.
Thank you to all of our community partners and wonderful volunteers!
On November 3 from 9:00am-12:00pm, the CVC will be having Johnson Day. Volunteers will show their appreciation to the PPD staff by working alongside them to help beautify the campus. These activities include raking leaves and making scarecrows, painting, sprucing up entryways, cleaning dorms, a surprise 2013 senior project, and more!
Here is the form where you can sign up:
https://docs.google.com/a/colby.edu/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHNFSnQ3MnhrT1hxV09EamI4Q3Y5cGc6MQ
If you have any questions, feel free to contact the CVC at cvc@colby.edu.
