Drawing our children made based on the stories they read that morning
Afternoon exercises in the Guadalupe Learning Lab
Miss Tyler leading a reading group
AZNT - Guadalupe - June / July
Caleb Winebrenner doing a storytelling session with some of our younger kids
the kids drawing pictures based on My Caleb's storytelling session
Game time at the Guadalupe Learning Lab
2015
Guadalupe Summer program going strong
We are well into our summer program in Guadalupe. We continue to work with the 50 children from tutoring; our focus is to go deeper with them and their families as opposed to adding more kids. We meet every week; Tues through Friday. Hours are 9 am to 5 pm.
Our schedule focuses learning in the mornings. We focus on doing reading lessons / activities with the children age ten and younger from 9 am to noon. With the older children (age 11 and up) we do Bible studies and leadership development. The afternoons are spend doing field trips like the Phoenix zoo, museums, water parks and Skateland.
For the older kids, we are doing the Discovery Bible study from CNT, where we go through the entire Bible in 28 lessons. Then we are having each child plan and execute a community service project for Guadalupe. The kids come up with the ideas and we have many of them - painting, community garden, senior center service, etc. It is exciting.
It is important to understand this is not one of those projects done "for" the people in Guadalupe. This is a community owned program. Community leaders Miss Marina and Miss Rose run them. Parents help out by driving the van, cooking lunch, chaperoning field trips, etc. The parents also do all the driving to field trips (our van is only a 15 person van and Miss Dina drives this). The parents provide money for the field trips and lunch. And the kids are working on giving back to the community of Guadalupe that they love.
Finally, you might ask what are we doing on mondays. On mondays, we do our moms club, which is now running. Also, we open the lab, its computers and high speed internet to adults that want to work on GED test practice. The GED work is slow in taking off but we are persevering - it shall come.
State Farm Grant
We missed the State Farm grant.....
As many of you know, Guadalupe Learning Lab was trying for a $25,000 State Farm grant. We were one of 4000 causes to enter and we made it to the final 200. These went into a big FaceBook vote-off to see which of these 200 finalists could get the most FaceBook votes. We gave this a good shot and we want to thank everyone that supported us by voting on FaceBook for the Guadalupe Learning Lab and then sharing with your friends. We came in in the mid 60s, missing the top 40.
In one way, this is a bit of sad news. I know many of you out there were fantastic supporters of us and voted consistently every day and I can tell you, I and Miss Marina are sad we did not make the top 40. However, I really think this is something to celebrate. We learned so much about how to do these kind of campaigns We met so many new people and were able to let them know what is going on in Guadalupe.
I rejoice in all I saw come out of this. We had people voting for the Guadalupe Learning Lab from ALL OVER THE WORLD - Malaysia, Australia, South Africa..... We had 15 of our parents and a bunch of kids from the Guadalupe Learning Lab braving 108 degree heat to stop cars in the middle of Guadalupe, tell them about the lab and get them to vote for the lab on FaceBook! Our first time in the voting we placed well into the top half. While we did not win, it was a true joy to see the community being built by all of us working together for this. And that is what it is about.
We will try again next year - so keep an eye out for it! We are shooting to be in the top 40 Facebook vote getters in 2016! So thank you for your support and watch for it again next year.
Thanks yous, Praises and Prayers:
* Thank you to everyone that joined us to vote for us and to share with their friends our quest for the $25,000 grant from State Farm. While we did not get the grant, we learned much and made many new friends. God is good - thank you all so much for your support!
* Thank you for the healing in my Dad. He suffered a stroke in September and continues to heal well. He is walking on his own (still needs a cane most times) and is fully recovered in his left arm and speech. I know many of you have been praying so thank you
* I would ask for prayers of Miss Carol, wife of our friend Gary DeVelder, the director of Abounding Service - a partner of ours. She is working with medical experts on alternative treatments for a very dangerous and aggressive form of cancer. Please include them in your prayers.
