 |
|||
|
|||
 |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||
In recent evaluations of the 2007 - 2008 academic
year, nearly 90% of Peer Health Exchange high school
students said that they will use something they
learned from PHE workshops to make a healthy
decision in the future. An additional 53% of students
said they had already used something they learned
from PHE workshops to make a healthy decision
during the program. Finally, an impressive 100% of
PHE principals said they would recommend the
program to other schools.
With the success of this past academic year, PHE has
launched new university partnerships at Tufts
University and Boston College and will
train 300 college student volunteers across six college
sites to reach approximately 2,500 - or nearly 40% of
public school 9th graders in Boston - this upcoming
school year.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||
This past spring, Raising A Reader-MA held its first
annual Goodnight Moon Gala on May 14,
2008. The program included a speech honoring the
work of local philanthropist, Don Rodman,
with a heart felt introduction from friend and New
England entrepreneur, Robert Kraft. RAR-MA
is grateful to the many individuals and companies who
supported the event, allowing them to successfully
raise an impressive $250,000 at their first event to
continue and grow the program throughout
Massachusetts.
With a goal of reaching 5,000 children and their
families in 2008, RAR-MA recently hired four new staff
members, bringing the total staff size to six full-time
employees and one intern. RAR-MA welcomed 35
new family child care providers as partners in
Chelsea and Revere and has
selected program partners for its fall expansion into
Lawrence, MA.
|
||
|
|
||
With a three-year $600,000 grant from the
Corporation for National and Community
Service, Friends-Boston will be able to double the
number of children it serves with its intensive,
sustained mentoring program. The grant will allow
Friends-Boston to recruit and train AmeriCorps
members to serve as mentors for some of
Boston's most vulnerable children. Friends-Boston
will be required to raise an additional $190,000 each
year to match this grant and is currently seeking
funding partners. With this funding Friends-Boston will
double their size and the number of Achievers that can
enroll in the Friends-Boston program over the next
year.
On June 9th, the Boston Campaign for Proficiency
(BCP) recognized the achievements of students in
their partner schools and organizations at their annual
Kids of Character event. Friends-Boston partners with
BCP to ensure that Boston's children are
academically proficient people of strong character. Six
Achievers were recognized as "Kids of Character."
According to most recent data, 100% of Achievers in
4th grade are reading at or above grade level.
On May 22nd, over 300 people crowded the Artists
for
Humanity EpiCenter in South Boston for "A Picnic
with Friends" spring gala. The program included
words from John Simon, Dr. Stewart
Ablon, Executive
Director Imari Paris Jeffries, an Achiever and
Family
Friend, and the debut of the Friends-Boston
documentary.
Friends-Boston Board Member Dave Porter of
Bay State Financial Services LLC was
selected as one of 15 people across the United States
to receive a MetLife Volunteer Service Award.
Established in 1994, the award recognizes MetLife
associates nationwide who have made outstanding
contributions to their communities through
volunteerism. In recognition of Dave Porter's volunteer
work, Friends-Boston was awarded a $2,500 grant
from MetLife.
|
||
|
|
||
On June 3rd, the GreenLight Fund hosted the annual
VCs vs Entrepreneurs Golf Tournament at the
International Course in support of Peer Health
Exchange. Always fun and competitive, the annual
tournament draws many of Boston's most successful
venture capitalists and high tech entrepreneurs to
compete in the Ryder Cup-style match play game.
Once again the entrepreneur team prevailed, led by
captains Sung Park, Jim Lippie,
JJ Allaire and John Landry. Founded
and organized in past years by Sung Park, managing
director of Umagination Labs, and Michael
Trethewey of Morgan Stanley-
Zimmerman/Trethewey Group, the golf tournament is
now an annual GreenLight Fund event.
GreenLight was able to raise $220,000 for Peer Health Exchange thanks to the following sponsors: Morgan Stanley, General Catalyst Partners, Capital Advisors, famaPR, Goodwin Procter LLP, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC, Oracle, Square 1 Bank, CDW, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Deloitte Tech Venture Center, Fidelity Ventures, Foley & Lardner LLP, Highland Capital Partners, Mintz Levin, North Bridge Venture Partners, Polachi, Prism VentureWorks, Revolution Partners, Sun Microsystems, Thrive Networks, Venator Partners, Putnam Investments, Eaton Vance, Lord Abbett, Boston Magazine, Bowne of Boston, Cadillac, Long's Jewelers, and Monderer Design.
|
||
|
|
||
Special thanks to Cooley Godward Kronish
LLP, Boston Magazine and Party by
Design for sponsoring the New England
Venture Network's (NEVN) April networking event,
benefitting the GreenLight Fund at The Greatest
Bar in Boston. Members of NEVN learned about
the GreenLight Fund and its three portfolio
organizations as they watched the Red Sox-Yankees
game on Boston's largest flat screen television. The
Red Sox-themed event featured Fenway fare, a re-
creation of Fenway Park inside the bar, gift bags
compliments of Boston Magazine, limited edition
green Red Sox hats featuring the GreenLight Fund
logo, and a raffle for Red Sox tickets.
|
||
|
|
||
It is with great excitement that the GreenLight Fund
welcomes its newest portfolio organization -
Youth Villages' Transitional Living Program.
GreenLight will introduce this new program at the
fourth annual GreenLight Gala to be held on
Thursday, September 18, 2008 at the
Colonnade Hotel.
Special thanks to the following 2008 Gala sponsors, as of August 1st: The Blackstone Group, the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation, General Catalyst Partners, Goodwin Procter LLP, Grove Street Advisors, Jefferies, Becky & Mark Levin, Susan & John Simon, BNY Mellon, Kate & Chuck Brizius, the Friend Family & the Harris Family Foundation, Susan & Glenn Rothman of Hearts on Fire, SVB Financial Group, Bullhorn, Inc., the Robert E. Davoli and Eileen L. McDonagh Charitable Foundation, Deloitte, GTC Law Group LLP, Shelly & Ofer Nemirovsky, Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP, Ropes & Gray LLP, Summerhill Venture Partners, and Vette Corp.
The GreenLight Gala is key
to establishing exceptional programs - like Youth
Villages' Transitional Living program - in the Boston
community and raising funds to maximize their impact.
For more information, please contact Melanie
Damsker at 617-252-2815 or at
mdamsker@greenlightfund.org.
|
||
|
|
||
 Please save the date for An Emerald Evening
to be held on Thursday, December 4, 2008
at
the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama.
Taking on a brand new
format - including a young professional after party, An
Emerald Evening will continue to raise significant
funds for Youth Villages and showcase its Transitional
Living Program to the venture capital, high tech
entrepreneur and private equity communities. For
more information, please contact Melanie Damsker at
617-252-2815 or at mdamsker@greenlightfund.org.
|
||
|
|
||
On a warm, Thursday afternoon in Chelsea,
parents and children begin to fill the small classroom
space in the CAPIC Head Start building. The
room hums with three different languages and
squirming bodies until Casey Johnson, Program
Director for Raising A Reader -
Massachusetts (RAR), begins the Reading Circle
by reading aloud from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What
Do You See?
The children and their mothers follow attentively as
Casey sings the rhythmic words on each page: "Red
bird, red bird what do you see?" Casey accompanies
the text with interactive questions to allow the mothers
and children to share their favorite colors, animals,
and opinions on the story. For the moment,
differences in background are forgotten as the group
of children and adults sit engrossed in the story.
The Raising A Reader mission is to give every child an
equal opportunity for achievement by engaging low-
income parents in a routine of daily book sharing from
birth to age five, fostering healthy brain development,
parent-child bonding, and the early literacy skills
essential for school success.
After the group finishes in the Reading Circle the second book for the day,
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, one mother, Miriam,
approaches a visitor. "My oldest daughter, who is in
first
grade, learned to read because of RAR and is now
teaching my other daughter how to read with her
favorite RAR book." She continues, "It's a complete
family activity." Miriam has been involved with RAR in
Massachusetts since it began just over two years ago
at the Kangaroo's Pouch in Chelsea, and three of her
four children participate in the RAR program. Her
fourth child, the newest addition to the family, will start
participating in RAR in the fall.
As a wrap-up activity, the children, ages three to five,
color pictures of bright hungry caterpillars and
butterflies. The coloring activity gives them a chance
to interact with one another while the parents talk
among themselves. One mother, Maria, quietly
confesses in Spanish on the side, "I have difficulties
reading in English, but RAR provides my son with
bilingual books, so I can read to him. I'm so grateful
because we're both able to learn how to read [in
English] together."
Raising A Reader is giving this mother the tools she
needs to share books daily with her children and, in
this critical way, helps prepare them to succeed in
school later on. She, like the other mothers in the
Reading Circle, and hundreds of other parents in the
program, is learning the great impact these early
shared book experiences have on a child's
development. And the ripple effects are great.
Although RAR directly benefits the nearly 3,000, and
soon to be 5,000, children who are enrolled in the
program, its impact goes far beyond them. By
engaging parents in the important role of daily shared
book time with their children, RAR has become
a "complete family activity," influencing thousands of
parents, siblings and countless more friends and
relatives, and creating a real read-aloud movement
across the Boston area and the
United States.
|
||
|
|
||
The GreenLight Fund is now able to accept online
donations! We have partnered with Network
For
Good
to facilitate secure, quick, customized online
donations. We are able to accept all tax
deductible
donations made with Visa, Mastercard, and
American
Express credit cards on our website -
check it out!
|
||
|
|
|
|
email:
info@greenlightfund.org
phone:
617-252-3235
|
|