Half-court basketball court......coming SOON!

YOU ARE INVITED!

March 20, 2010 from 2PM to 4PM for the opening of our half-court basketball court and our three-year (in this location!) open house!

Our volunteers have been working hard to get everything finished up in time for our annual open house! Come tour our new facilities (kitchen, handicapped bathroom and gym), see our improved cafe area, and visit our board of directors! We will be dedicating the gym in memory of Connie Lance, a board member who passed away this summer. Connie was an integral part of obtaining the grant from the Erie Community Foundation that allowed us to do all of the construction we've done in the past year.

For now, enjoy some pictures of the latest construction on the gym - our lights are up, and the mesh covering is over them to protect them from basketballs!




If you haven't been by, feel free to swing in and see what we're doing here!

-Julie

Weekly update and card reader news!

Happy Monday, all!

For those of you who weren't aware, I was out most of last week with the flu. Thankfully, Dr. Corder and Mr. Sembower covered the youth center on Thursday in my absence! I am feeling much better this week, and we are back to our normal schedule at The Center (M,W,F - High School and T,H,F - Middle School) with Journey and Light Force pickups continuing as normal.

Saturday was a quiet, but fun, elementary school day. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, and keep your eyes out for our announcement of the March elementary school day! Sunday, I spoke at the Federated Church in East Springfield to encourage community members to volunteer. We are ALWAYS in need of volunteers! If you would like to help, please call Julie at 756-5087.

We are still collecting Health Kits or health kit supplies for Haiti. We are attempting to partner with some local businesses in our effort, and we will update you as soon as we have more information!

And now, for the card reader update!!!

We will be starting to print ID cards THIS WEEK!!! If you aren't sure what you need to have in order to get your ID card, please see Julie. AFTER MARCH 1, 20101 WE WILL NO LONGER BE SIGNING IN AND OUT ON PAPER. After this time, you will be required to use your ID card to scan in and out. New students will need to see Julie for registration details. The card reader system has taken a little longer to get up and running than we anticipated, but it will be worth the wait!

Health Kits for Haiti

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to bring you our latest outreach project from the NCYC - Health Kits for Haiti! We are joining in this effort along with Springfield Elementary and several local churches.

Students will be supplied with a list of donations needed for the health kits, and will be asked to bring in whatever supplies they can. We will be assembling the kits at The Center, and are encouraging adults to help out as well! Adults are welcome to stop by The Center to help students put the kits together, and are encouraged to bring in supplies, donations, or fully constructed kits to help with our project!

So what do we need for the kits? Well, I'm glad you asked!! Here are the guidelines for Health Kits:

Place these items inside a sealed one-gallon plastic bag.
*1 hand towel (15" x 25" up to 17" x 27", No kitchen towels)
*1 washcloth
*1 comb (large and sturdy, not pocket-sized)
*1 nail file or fingernail clippers (no emery boards or toenail clippers)
*1 bath-size bar of soap (3 oz. and up)
*1 toothbrush (single brushes only in original wrapper, No child-size brushes)
*6 adhesive plastic strip sterile bandages
*$1.00 to purchase toothpaste (NOTE: We are now purchasing toothpaste in bulk to be added to health kits before shipping to ensure that the product does not expire before they are sent.)

Important Kit Assembly Information
*All items included in kits must be NEW items.
*All emergency kits are carefully planned to make them usable in the greatest number of situations. Since strict rules often govern product entry into international countries, it is important that kits contain only the requested items-nothing more.

Please feel free to drop by The Center with completed kits or donations, or just to help out!

Parents, watch for the supplies list to be coming home with your student(s) THIS WEEK!

-Julie, Director
756-5087

Note for students Monday 2/8 and 2/15

Hey folks,

Remember, the Youth center will not be open today Monday 2/8 due to no school. We will be open tomorrow for Middle and High School students. There will also be no after-school programming on 2/15 for the same reason.

Monday (2/8) Closed
Tuesday (2/9) Combined
Wednesday (2/10) High School
Thursday (2/11) Middle School
Friday (2/12) Combined

Monday (2/15) Closed
Tuesday (2/16) Combined
Wednesday (2/17) High School
Thursday (2/18) Middle School
Friday (2/19) Combined

See ya tomorrow!

Julie

Spring Cleaning....A little early!

This past Saturday (Feb. 6) board members and volunteers joined together to give the Youth Center a good Spring cleaning and repair a few things. One of the main improvements that occurred this weekend is running water in the kitchen! Byron was able to get our new sink all set up, and we will now be able to make drinks for students on-site (kool-aid, gatorade, lemonade, etc) without having to spend as much money. We were also able to get hand sanitizer, soap, paper towel and toilet paper dispensers hung. We are making progress on the gym, and hope to be able to open soon (thanks to the donation of gym padding from the Federated church)!

In addition to the ongoing renovation projects, we also had a team of volunteers who re-assembled our fallen pool table, mopped, swept and vaccuumed the floor, cleaned the windows, cut new carpet for the entryway, rearranged equipment, and overall gave the place a thorough scrubbing!

Here are some post-cleaning pictures:

A big "THANK YOU!" to everyone who helped! We'll post more pictures soon!

-Julie, Director

756-5087

2009 and Looking Forward.....

At the close of 2009, I'm pleased to announce that this year the after school program at the youth center had over 6600 visits from over 250 individual middle and high school students! These numbers are great, and we're already showing improvement over last year. In January 2010, we had an increase of 102 visits over the previous January. Our Elementary Day numbers are starting to escalate as well - the next one is scheduled for Feb. 20

We ended our holiday cereal drive at the beginning of Feb. and the students collected over 50 boxes of cereal. The High School students donated 2 more boxes of cereal than the middle school, so they will receive a pizza party as a reward. We will soon be offering many more community service opportunities, including the Linus Project (making blankets for infants and children), our Community Clean-Up Days starting in March, helping open the park at a local amusement park, as well as continuing community service opportunities inside The Center.

We still REALLY need volunteers!!!! We usually have 30-50 kids a night, and can really use the help!! You don't have to volunteer daily or make a long-term obligation - you can volunteer an afternoon a week, a month, or just whenever you can! If you don't want to volunteer with the kids, but have gifts of repair or baking or pretty much any other skill, please contact me and we'll figure out how you can help!

We've been asked many times for a list of things we need, and I've compiled as complete a list as I can. Please see the following categories to see what we need for each.

Volunteer Needs:

• Gym volunteer - we're just about to open a half-court basketball court. We need a 21+ volunteer to supervise and officiate pickup games.
• Sign in/Sign out volunteer - help students sign in and out, make sure all students sign in
• Student Store volunteer - help the Youth Council by overseeing student store operations
• Repairs volunteer - with 6600+ students in The Center a year, we always have repair needs.
  
• Homework help/Mentor - assist students in grades 6-12 with homework
  

Snacks and Snack Supplies:

• Pretzels, popcorn, fresh fruit, baked goods, individually wrapped snacks (chips, cookies, crackers, etc)
• Gallon jugs of juice, water, or lemonade, bottles of pop, other drinks
• Peanut butter, jelly (sometimes bread - contact us to find out about this need!)
• Microwave snacks (ez mac, etc)
• Paper plates, bowls, napkins, paper towels, toilet paper
• Plastic silverware and cups
• Clorox wipes, hand soap, dish soap, germX
• Rolls of butcher paper

General Use Equipment:

• Pool sticks/chalk/equipment
• Ping pong balls/paddles/equipment
• Foosball balls, air hockey pucks
  
• Markers, crayons (washable), notebook and construction paper, scissors
• Beads, elastic cord, crafting supplies

Used Equipment:

• Any video game system, or video games for PS2 or Xbox360
• Old computers/computer parts/computer games
• Teen-appropriate/oriented books

Please contact me if you have any donations or wish to volunteer! We should have a volunteer calendar up soon!

-Julie Arseneault
Director, NCYC
756-5087