The
6th homicide victim of the year in the city of New Haven died this
morning. He was 16 years old. The previous victim was 17 years old old.
His 16 year old brother was shot, but fortunately survived. The time
for mere talk, idle musings and vain philosophizing
has passed us by. It is time for decisive action. Planning for a purely
action-oriented meeting is underway. There are many people in this city
already doing many wonderful things to bring about change. IF
we are at a place where people are fed up enough to actually get
involved in a personal way, there are many places to plug in and help to
increase the reach and overall effectiveness of what is already
occurring! The Greater New Haven Help Alliance is one among many such
places to plug in. While I'd certainly love to see you engage with us,
any help offered anywhere that is actively endeavoring to find a cure
for our urban cancer is greatly appreciated.
My
motivator is Jesus Christ. He may or may not be a motivating force in
your life. Regardless your motivation, if you want to rise up and get
involved in bringing peace to our city, you are my friend in the cause!
While I look forward (with others) to bringing together other action oriented friends in the very near future to specifically increase
our collective ranks, here is what my piece of the puzzle is up to
lately. Perhaps you will see fit to help us do what we do.
1. Summer Youth Initiative
We are about to launch our eighth annual Summer Youth Initiative during the month of July. For 4 weeks in the Summer, we
bring in High School age students from around the city and train them
in overall life skills, leadership development and goal setting each
weekday morning. We dispatch them to several local businesses and
agencies throughout the city for actual work experience each afternoon.
The students receive a weekly stipend of $200 for their participation.
It is much more than a Summer job!
We receive about $2000 total from the city's Youth at Work program. The remaining $7000 of the budget is up to us to raise
We typically
do so (for the 4th year in a row now) through a 5k run/walk event. This
year, we are pleased to announce that the New Haven Public School
System has recognized the event as a great community-building,
non-religious, health promoting activity. They will sponsor the
registration over 200 young people. That is fantastic!
The way we
raise funds though is not so much through registrations but largely
through participants who line up sponsors for their efforts. For
example, I just received my first $100 pledge from someone for my own
intended participation! The kids from the school system will not be taking part in generating sponsorships for our Youth Initiative.
Do you run? Can you walk 3.1 miles, or two miles? None of the above? Then maybe you can sponsor me to run the 3.1 miles.
More info can be found
General Donations can be made here.
2. Gang of Dads Mentoring Program
By the time
we had screened and trained the original 35 men who showed up for our
first interest meeting, we whittled that number down to 9 candidates.
They all have mentees now and have been meeting regularly. We (a
collaboration of the Greater New Haven Help Alliance and the New Haven
Family Alliance) are about to start the process all over again and hold
another Interest Meeting on Saturday, April 12th (see details below).
Going
forward in our group times times together we will be bringing in
motivational speakers, taking the mentees to motivating places, etc.
All of that costs money. No one on the staff overseeing the program and
none of the mentors are paid. This is strictly a volunteer operations
and yet volunteers notwithstanding, there are costs involved. Here
again, your help would be greatly appreciated.
Where
would the world be without volunteers? New Haven has a great volunteer
base. I recently started a Facebook site called Volunteer New Haven. It's
a page for organizations to post their needs and show their efforts
while providing a site for potential volunteers to consider where they
might be able to plug in. Check it out here.
4. Adopt-a-School
Given
their greatly publicized challenges over this school year, it has been
very timely for us to be present at the Lincoln-Bassett School for our
second school year. We are tutors, mentors, classroom helpers and art
coaches. We'll be looking forward to our third year in the Fall of 2014
and hope to raise up enough volunteers to be able to adopt an additional
school! Stay tuned! If you think you may be interested in helping out
next year, email me at schools@helpnewhaven.org.
Rev. Todd C. Foster
(203) 466-8990
Founder and President, Greater New Haven Help Alliance
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