Playing dodgeball

As the spring weather began to show through in early March, YVC had the opportunity to spend their afternoon at the Boys and Girls Club. The project was held during National AmeriCorps week so the youth heard stories from current and past AmeriCorps members about their service. For the presenters, we had current members serving at the Tumbleweed Runaway Program, as a team leader at MSUBillings, and a past member who served for the City of Billings making a community garden. Each presenter  had some kind of icebreaker or team builder for the youth to partake in. Some of those team builders were to unwind themselves out of a human knot which never reach its end and building a balloon tower where they were provided tape but the tape could not touch the ground. There was some very interesting towers! After the presenters finished up, we moved outside to play dodgeball with the kids from the Boys and Girls Club. We played three rounds of dodgeball and decided  to try our skills at the basketball game, lightning. Overall, it was a good informational night for YVC to know that their volunteering doesn’t end when they graduate from High School.

Lightning!

One of the balloon towers

Youth posing with their proud cupcaking skills

YVC gained a new partnering site this month, the Ronald McDonald House. We were able to show off our chef and arts and crafts skills while gearing up for Valentine’s Day a couple of days early. Rita, the volunteer coordinator, gave an orientation at the beginning about the house and how they are funded. She told us that the families can stay there for as little as $15 a night while their son or daughter are in the hospital with a life-threatening illness or injury and if the family doesn’t have the money at that time, they will never turn someone down because of that reason. We learned that 15 ounces was all the baby weighed whose parents stayed at the Billings house! Soon after the orientation, we broke into three different groups: one helping prepare the taco bar for the Valentine’s Meal for the families, another group making cupcakes, and the other showing their creative skills with arts and crafts. We rotated through every station and before we knew it, the project was done and we were wrapping up! Overall, we had a lot of fun and were able to accomplish what we set out to do. We look forward to partnering with the Ronald McDonald House again.

Youth browning the meat for the taco bar

Youth showing how he made the Norwegian hearts smaller and smaller for table decorations

Hearts and cards we made for the families

Youth working on the cupcakes

If you are interested in having someone come in and do a presentation with your class, we promise it will be a fun, engaging, and meaningful time for your students. These three attributes are what we exactly strive for in every project we do plan for our YVC members. This is what the outline would like:

1. Nathan, Program Manager, and a Team Leader, will come in on the decided date and time.

2. They will start with giving a little background about themselves and what their role is with YVC.

3. We would begin an interactive presentation that would include the students to decide what kind of characteristics that make a volunteer and where or what the students can do while being part of YVC.

4. Talk about any upcoming projects we may have.

5. The last part of the lesson would be to do a mini-service project, all the supplies provided by YVC, and would be determined when the date comes up.

Contact Nathan Stahley at 406-252-3839 ext. 38 for any questions or wanting to sign up for a presentation!

BETA Club and YVC

On that Thursday afternoon in January, where we experienced rain instead of snow, the youth volunteers and the members of BETA Club from Castle Rock Middle School set out to help assemble hygiene kits for the one stop event for the homeless, Billings Community Connect. We did a quick icebreaker and then had a little orientation from a HUB employee telling us about what Billings Community Connect was and services the HUB provides. The youth received information on a simulation where they had only $100 to spend for the month on food, diapers, dog food, and some essentials after receiving information that made them decide what they would pay for and what they would go without for the month. After this, the volunteers jumped right in and assembled close to 100 kits for the homeless, with the supplies brought by the BETA Club’s drive at their school. The youth also made a sign for the event that would happen the next day. The kids had the chance to get dirty with some finger painting as they designed the sign to welcome everyone to Billings Community Connect. Overall, the project went very well and we had a blast partnering with the BETA Club and the HUB again. We look forward to partnering with them again next year.

Finger painting

Sign the youth made

Taking a quick break

A group discussing their options during the simulation

Santa and his Photo Helper

Our last project of 2011 was spent spreading holiday cheer to children and families in Billings!  Taking place at the Garfield Community Center, we invited families from the south side area to attend the carnival.  YVC took charge of organizing and planning two booths for the carnival event.  One booth was ornament decoration where our volunteers helped guide kids in making sequin ornaments for hanging on their Christmas trees, while the other was a Santa Clause photo booth.  One of our youth volunteers dressed as Santa and others took the photos and printed them on the spot so everyone could take home a photo.  Other booths at the event were provided by the MSU Billings Office for Community Involvement and other campus student groups.  A big shout out to our YVC Youth Leaders who helped pick our booths and gather the needed supplies and materials.  You ROCK!

Santa and the MSUB Mascot

Making Ornaments!

Team YVC!

Getting ready to "Ho, Ho, Ho!"

MSUBillings coffee cup winner with her team!

As the winter season started settling in with a fairly chilly morning, and fans of the Cat and Griz began to bundle up for the game, we started the day off with National Family Volunteer Day. We partnered with MSUBillings in providing a scavenger hunt for the residents at St. John’s Lutheran Retirement Home. YVC members and their families began the project with coloring and cutting out the turkeys and leaves that would be used later for the hunt. As the leaves and turkeys were strategically placed, the families began to get paired with residents to start their hunt as a team.

Family coloring

YVC members and families coloring

The teams went on their way with a roaring start, we had confusion, competition, and just all around happiness through the hunt. When all of the teams returned, the team leader for MSUBillings counted up how many turkeys and leaves each team received and little did the teams know that they would be awarded with prizes. The resident of St. John’s, with the winning number of 8, received a MSUBillings coffee cup and the runner-up received a MSUBillings water cup. The families that participated received a tin with The Incredibles on it and some even had a DVD inside. We had an awesome turnout with this project and the opportunity for families to give their time to a local retirement home together and to see the residents with their faces lit up with smiles, will never be forgotten.

Resident visiting with one of our team leader's sons.

And they are off!

Reading the first book of the day

As we geared up for another busy month ahead of us, we had  a two-part project where we first offered a reading workshop for the members and then putting what we learned in that workshop to the project a couple of days later. This workshop was put on by Julie Morris, who is part of the Early Childhood Development section of United Way of Yellowstone County, and she taught us how to choose a book for an audience that could be a wide range of ages and how to make the story interesting for the listener. We learned that there can be books that are too long, books that are too detailed, and it is important we know the range of children who will be at the event. By reading to children stimulates their brain and Julie talked to us about this and how it is crucial to read to a child at such a young age.

As the first snow began to fall that Saturday, families gathered at the Metra for Market Place Magic. The Junior League of Billings put on a mini-kid’s museum to raise awareness about building an actual kid’s museum in the near future. The stations that were provided were a Dino Dig, where the children could dig in the sand for dinosaur bones, a Born Learning Trail donated by the United Way of Yellowstone County, a dress-up place where little girls could put a dress or costume on and show it off on the stage; this stage also gave kids the opportunity to show the audience their talents by singing. They had a little house with toys inside of it, a corner with big dinosaurs and a race track, and there was also a reading tree. We brought some of our favorite childrens’ books to read such as The Moose and the Muffin, No, David, and My Dad Snores. After we got done with the story, the family received a book donated by United Way of Yellowstone County to encourage parents to read to their children. We had a wonderful time interacting with the kids and learning all about what the Junior League of Billings does.

Playing with the kid's in the toy corner

One of the team leaders reading one of her favorite books!

Writing quotes

On a couple of nights before a night where children can dress up as their favorite action figure or their favorite princess, we had costumes ranging from witches to a bumblebee to Lady Gaga even. We had such a fun time at Tumbleweed making goody bags and the opportunity to play games with sixty youth, families, and clients of Tumbleweed to kick-off the holiday! We got a tour of the facility and only received a taste of all the things Tumbleweed has to offer; such as the warehouse where they take all of their donations. The warehouse was huge, with so many donations from coats to jeans to food to hygiene products. After the tour, we dug right in and started making the goody bags for the Street Outreach Program. This program is where some of the the employees at Tumbleweed go out to a site in the Billings area community and visit with the teenagers that are either at risk or are homeless. They provide a snack because at times this is the only meal they receive; therefore, the goody bags that we made went directly to this program. The goody bags contained, of course, candy for the Halloween season, two Nutri-Grain bars, some information about where the recipient can go for help through Tumbleweed, and an inspirational quote. As we were working on the bags, families, youth, and clients from Tumbleweed started showing up, we ate pizza provided by Straw Hat Pizza! It was a good meal and then we played games! We had an awesome time playing games, seeing the costumes the kids showed up in, and doing all of this for such a good cause!

Stuffing the goody bags!

Assembly line for the goody bags

YVC and MCC!

We had the opportunity to partner with Montana Conservation Corps for National Public Lands Day at Sundance Lodge on a beautiful Saturday morning. We moved wood chips around to preserve the trails and moved a kiosk sign from the beginning of the trail to over by the Yellowstone River. There were other groups there joining us who we got to interact with and learn how important it is to keep our hidden treasures, like Sundance Lodge, in great condition. We learned this is where a lot of older residents like to go  to bird watch, which there had been bald eagles flying around the week before we had got there, but sadly we never saw one. We learned that the cricket sounds we heard being by the water, they live underground for thirteen years and then they live in the trees. It was very peaceful, and to know it was only a half hour from Billings! All in all, the weather was perfect and we learned so much about the land we were working with.

Improvising with moving the woodchips!

Figuring out how far we would need to carry the kiosk.

Perfect placement!

Spreading woodchips

For one of our last summer week long projects we teamed up with United Way and their initiative to keep kids happy and healthy.  We were given the mission to create a video that would be used to help train teachers and parents from a kid’s perspective.  We spent our first few days brainstorming and deciding what we wanted our video to be.  We wrote interview questions that would help us investigate what make great role models and filmed and edited two videos.  Our finished project was a 100% youth made video focused on what makes a good teacher and what makes a good parent.  Take a look!

Editing the final cut

Recording audio narration

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