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ILI Weekly Updates - Sep/Oct '06 |
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Back to Weekly Updates
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From ILI Project Coordinator Bob Kovar |
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October 27, 2006 |
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Friday October 27, 2006
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ ILI staff met Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at one of our schools to allow their 8th grade students a chance to air concerns about ILI. While there wasn’t much discussion with us present on Tuesday, after we left the kids really opened up to their teacher who sat down with us yesterday to discuss. Without going into detail (because that isn’t fair to the students’ confidentiality), suffice it to say, we need to sit down and reevaluate how we are delivering our program to 7th and 8th grade students. We have been hearing from students this age at other schools as well concerns with our programming, which we are definitely going to address, but even more important than that are deeper fears and “uncomfortableness” of being with students from another culture-and this goes both ways. We don’t see it much in 4th-6th grade, but it develops and its powerful as the students get older. The heart of the problem-its easier NOT to mix with people who you don’t feel comfortable around, the reality of our world is that we live in an increasingly diverse world. This is complicated. Do we want our children to be able to live in a world that is made up of diverse peoples? How many of our children will work in such places when they begin their careers? Even before that, our students WILL be together in LUHS whether they want to be or not. Can we (ILI staff) expect to make a difference in the 7 hours three days a year that we work with students in ILI? We want to believe that we can- but how do we address these things without students getting defensive or hurt feelings? We won’t do that. So we’re now trying to think outside of even our box. Please let us know your thoughts because this is your program, these are all “our children” and this community belongs to all of us.
§ This was our first week without any elementary sessions in a while-there was no LUHS ILI activity period this week but we did meet with our After School Leadership group.
§ The big push right now is to try and get the syllabus completed for the After School leadership program-almost there-by next week we hope!
§ We had a great group of volunteers come in on Tuesday to help with the Friends of ILI newsletter mailing: ILI Volunteers -John and Gretchen Spickerman, Joan and Dick Fahning, Grandma Marge Greene; and a great group of LUHS ER west students- Ethan Davids, Michael Schuman, Chrissy Graham, and Adrienne "Beka" Williams and their teacher Bill Eckerstorfer. We were done in record time! You should be receiving these in the mail already-if you don’t get one and would like one please let us know. I’ve attached a pdf file for you to look at as well. THANK YOU and Chi Miigwetch to all those that helped us J
§ We completed work on our application to the Wisconsin Community Fund and got it to FedEx with minutes to spare.
§ Our group of LUHS ILI After School Leadership students were gearing up to attend the first senior high Wisconsin Regional Teen Institute but unfortunately it was cancelled because they didn’t get enough students from around the state to attend. Our students were looking forward to this opportunity-we’ll just have to keep looking…
§ We received $15000 this week from Lac du Flambeau Grade School- a wonderful donation to our program. We are honored to serve all of the children in 4th-8th grade there and we are deeply appreciative of their continued support-thank you!
§ We received $275 from Friends of ILI donors this week-thank you!!
§ ILI In the Media: nothing this week
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ Wednesday November 1: LUHS Junior/senior Meeting 9:40-10:10-Multi-purpose Room. LUHS ILI Afterschool Leadership program 3:45-5:45 LUHS.
§ ILI/LUHS After school Learning Center: The after school learning center is open Tuesday - Thursday from 3:45 - 6:00pm in LUHS student services. Mr Burley, School Counselor, will have student services open on Mondays to work with students preparing for the ACT and other students who would like to come and do schoolwork are also encouraged to be there.
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
We’ve spoken to LUHS Asst. Principal Jon Lucivansky about calling the next Transition Committee meeting. He said he will do that after testing is over in a few weeks.
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ Thank you all who helped with our mailings!
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: Please watch for the 2006-07 Friends of ILI Newsletter in your mail-we should have it in the mail this week! If you don’t get one and want one, please let us know and we’ll make sure you get it. We can send it to you via email as well if you’d prefer. This is the single biggest effort we make for individuals and local businesses to help support ILI, so you’re support is greatly appreciated!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI staff is now on our second 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $177,026 of our $374,055 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.
§ Please view the current 2006-07 ILI Session Calendar at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.
Bob Kovar, Project
Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Friday October 20, 2006
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ On Monday and Tuesday we had ILI 8th grade sessions. On Wednesday we held the After School program and on Thursday we held a LUHS ILI activity period session.
§ On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday ILI staff continued worked on the curriculum for the after school program. In addition, this is a time for us to take a breath-we have had ILI sessions for 5 weeks in a row and now we need to catch up on other stuff and start planning for the next round!
§ Alice and Joan have completed the labels for the 06-07 Friends of ILI newsletter. We are hoping to mail out 2500 newsletters by the end of the month. All volunteers are invited to help us next Tuesday here at GLITC where we will be putting all those labels on newsletters!
§ We worked this week on year-end reports for the GLITC Board, as well as on a grant application to the Wisconsin Community Fund that is due October 29.
§ We received $2500 this week from Marshfield Clinic, $5000 from AVW school and $250 from the WEA professional Development Academy in Madison. Thank you to all of these wonderful partners-we appreciate your support!
§ We were told of a really nice story regarding ILI that was discussed at a LUHS Board meeting this week. There were some grade school girls at a function, a mixture of LdF and girls from another grade school. The LdF girls were trying to share cookies with this group of girls-but some of them refused and tried to encourage the other girls not to associate with the girls from LdF. One of the girls has been in ILI, and she told her parent that her being in ILI helped her through the situation. She knew how to make the right choice between peer pressure and doing the right thing and she chose to be friendly with the girls from LdF and deal with her friends from her school another time. Its so nice to hear that students are transferring what they learn in ILI into their daily lives. Maybe it was just that these girls had a chance to become friends during an ILI session-but whatever the case, it diffused a bad situation and turned it into a positive experience for all the right reasons. We’re so proud of students like this-they are the ones truly changing our community, one person at a time.
§ ILI In the Media:
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ Wednesday October 25: LUHS Junior/senior Meeting 9:40-10:10-Multi-purpose Room. LUHS ILI Afterschool Leadership program 3:45-5:45 LUHS.
§ ILI/LUHS After school Learning Center: The after school learning center is open Tuesday - Thursday from 3:45 - 6:00pm in LUHS student services. Mr Burley, School Counselor, will have student services open on Mondays to work with students preparing for the ACT and other students who would like to come and do schoolwork are also encouraged to be there.
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
We’ve spoken to LUHS Asst. Principal Jon Lucivansky about calling the next Transition Committee meeting. He said he will do that after testing is over in a few weeks.
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ We are going to be putting labels on the newsletter on Tuesday October 24 at the GLITC office-starting at 9:30am.
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: Please watch for the 2006-07 Friends of ILI Newsletter in your mail-we should have it in the mail next week! If you don’t get one and want one, please let us know and we’ll make sure you get it. We can send it to you via email as well if you’d prefer. This is the single biggest effort we make for individuals and local businesses to help support ILI, so you’re support is greatly appreciated!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI staff is now on our second 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $161,751 of our $374,055 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.
§ Please view the current 2006-07 ILI Session Calendar at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.
Bob Kovar, Project
Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Friday October 13, 2006
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ On Monday and Tuesday we had ILI 7th grade sessions. On Wednesday we held a LUHS ILI activity period session as well as the After School program.
§ On Wednesday and thursday ILI staff worked on writing the curriculum for the after school program as well as planning next week’s 8th grade sessions.
§ This morning we met with the Howard Young Health Care Foundation Board to review last years ILI program as well as to discuss our proposal for this school year. the HYHC Foundation has been supporting ILI since the very beginning and we appreciate this partnership tremendously. It went well with many good questions this morning.
§ Alice and Joan are working on our labels for the 06-07 Friends of ILI newsletter. We are hoping to mail out 2500 newsletters by the end of the month.
§ We have been informed that our Letter of Intent to the Wisconsin Community Fund has been accepted and we have been asked to submit a full proposal. This is due October 29.
§ ILI In the Media: ILI is mentioned a few times in today’s edition of the Lakeland Times. There is an article about school safety following the recent rash of violence in schools around the country. LUHS Superintendent Mike Dailey includes ILI as one of the support programs in place to help keep students safe. There is also a letter to the editor from a NLES parent regarding the recent school board inquiries into rescheduling ILI. You can view this at http://www.lakelandtimes.com/letters.php?story=1532. We appreciate the support!
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ Monday October 16: LdF/MHLT/AVW 8th Grade LUHS School Forest 9am-2pm
§ Tuesday October 17: LdF/NLES 8th Grade LUHS School Forest 9am-2pm
§ Wednesday October 18: LUHS Junior/senior Meeting 9:40-10:10-Multi-purpose Room. LUHS ILI Afterschool Leadership program 3:45-5:45 LUHS.
§ ILI/LUHS After school Learning Center: The after school learning center is open Tuesday - Thursday from 3:45 - 6:00pm in LUHS student services. Mr Burley, School Counselor, will have student services open on Mondays to work with students preparing for the ACT and other students who would like to come and do schoolwork are also encouraged to be there.
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
Nothing to report this week
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ We are going to be putting labels on the newsletter on Tuesday October 24 at the GLITC office-starting at 10am.
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: If any of you would like to join “Friends of ILI” just let us know and we’ll send you the materials!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI staff is now on our second 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $154,001 of our $374,055 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.
§ Please view the current 2006-07 ILI Session Calendar at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.
Bob Kovar, Project
Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Friday October 6, 2006
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ On Monday and Tuesday we had ILI 6th grade sessions. On Wednesday we held a LUHS ILI activity period session as well as the After School program and today we had our last 4th grade session for this set of sessions.
§ On Wednesday ILI staff worked on planning the after school program as well as next week’s 7th grade sessions.
§ We continued work on our 2006-07 Friends Of ILI Newsletter. It is at the printer and should be ready for us to put labels on the week after next. Our volunteers will be happy to hear that this year they will already be folded and sealed when we get them so our only task will be to put the labels on-a piece of cake compared to previous years. ILI volunteer Joan Fahning has taken the immense task of trying to sort through our various mailing lists so we will hopefully eliminate duplicate labels this year. This is really a huge undertaking-thanks to Joanie for all the great help! We have received a great price this year on the printing so we will be able to mail out quite a few more newsletters than we have in the past as well as have a good stock of extras on hand for our speaking engagements and those requests we get throughout the year from folks finding out about our efforts.
§ We worked on and completed a funding request this week to the Oneida County Safe and Stable Families Program.
§ The BIG news this week on the funding front is that we received $25000 this week from the Lac du Flambeau Tribe. This really is a very generous donation as well as an indication of their level of support for ILI. They have been a strong partner since the very beginning of this project and their commitment and leadership is greatly appreciated by the more than 700 youth we are serving this school year. Chi Miigwetch to the LdF Tribal Council members for your continued support!
§ We were notified by Marshfield Clinic that we will be receiving $2500 from them this year. They are doing a press release about their donation with pictures and a story about what we do in ILI because they want to encourage others to support us as well. We really appreciate their continued support and community-minded leadership-thank you!
§ We were also notified today by the North Lakeland Education Foundation has approved our grant request for $1500. Thank you NLEF Board-this will really help with our NLES ILI program this year. Your support over the years has been crucial and we are very grateful-thank you!!!
§ ILI In the Media: nothing to report this week.
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ Monday October 9: LdF/MHLT/AVW 7th Grade LUHS School Forest 9am-2pm
§ Tuesday October 10: LdF/NLES 7th Grade LUHS School Forest 9am-2pm
§ Wednesday October 4: LUHS freshman/sophomore Meeting 9:40-10:10-Multi-purpose Room. LUHS ILI Afterschool Leadership program 3:45-5:45 LUHS.
§ ILI/LUHS After school Learning Center: The after school learning center is open Tuesday - Thursday from 3:45 - 6:00pm in LUHS student services. Mr Burley, School Counselor, will have student services open on Mondays to work with students preparing for the ACT and other students who would like to come and do schoolwork are also encouraged to be there.
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
Nothing to report this week
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ We are looking to set up a date for putting labels on our Friends of ILI newsletter the week of October 23 (we have no ILI sessions that week except on Wednesday). Probably Monday and Tuesday the 23rd and 24th.
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: If any of you would like to join “Friends of ILI” just let us know and we’ll send you the materials!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI staff is now on our second 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $154,001 of our $374,055 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.
§ Please view the current 2006-07 ILI Session Calendar at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.
Bob Kovar, Project
Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ On Monday and Friday we had ILI 5th grade sessions. On Wednesday we held our 2nd freshmen/sophomore LUHS ILI activity period session as well as the After School program.
§ On Tuesday ILI staff hosted one of the breakout sessions at the 2nd Annual Vilas County 6th Grade Positive Alternatives Conference. There were over 270 students there and we held all of our sessions outside on the lawn by the lake at the Lake of the Torches Casino. The purpose of the day was to expose 6th graders to all of the positive options/programs in the county as well as the importance of making positive choices in their lives.
§ On Wednesday ILI staff worked on planning the after school program.
§ We worked on and completed funding requests this week for the Wisconsin Community Fund, the Lakeland Noon Rotary Club and Howard Young Health Care Foundation.
§ We completed our 2006-07 Friends Of ILI Newsletter. This is our annual fundraising newsletter that we will be mailing out in the next few weeks to over 2000 folks in the area. We’re getting quotes on printing and compiling our mailing lists.
§ We received $5000 this week from the PAC Coalition, and $2100 from Friends of ILI. Thank you everyone for your continued support!
§ ILI In the Media: nothing to report this week.
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ Monday October 2: LdF/MHLT/AVW 6th Grade LUHS School Forest 9am-2pm
§ Tuesday October 3: LdF/NLES 6th Grade LUHS School Forest 9am-2pm
§ Wednesday October 4: LUHS Junior/senior Meeting 9:40-10:10-Multi-purpose Room. LUHS ILI Afterschool Leadership program 3:45-5:45 LUHS.
§ Friday October 6: LdF/AVW 4th grade Discovery Center/Cranberry Marsh Tour 9am-2pm.
§ ILI/LUHS After school Learning Center: The after school learning center is open Tuesday - Thursday from 3:45 - 6:00pm in LUHS student services. Mr Burley, School Counselor, will have student services open on Mondays to work with students preparing for the ACT and other students who would like to come and do schoolwork are also encouraged to be there.
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
Nothing to report this week
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ Thank you ILI volunteers for signing up to help for the sessions!
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: If any of you would like to join “Friends of ILI” just let us know and we’ll send you the materials!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI staff is now on our second 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $129,001 of our $374,055 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.
§ Please view the current 2006-07 ILI Session Calendar at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.
Bob Kovar, Project
Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ We were very busy this week with our first elementary sessions of the year-you’ve received those summaries.
§ ILI staff continues to work on the ILI After School Leadership Program course description and syllabus. We will be submitting next week to LUHS to consider for credit.
§ We have been contacted by the Wisconsin DNR Diversity team-they will be in our area early in October and are learning about various efforts to improve understanding of diversity issues in the northwoods and want to see what ILI is all about.
§ ILI was one of a number of Emerging Programs to be awarded funds through the Positive Alternatives Coalition-we’ll be receiving $5000 from this community-based prevention coalition that we are very active in.
§ ILI In the Media: a story in Tuesdays Lakeland Times with a headline “NLES Wants Diversity Program Rescheduled”. That really should not have been the headline as that was just one possibility discussed at the NLES school board meeting last week-we told them we felt that an after school elementary school program was impractical given the transportation costs and logistics. A better headline would have read “ILI to Pay For NLES Busing to Serssions”.
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ Monday September 25: LdF/MHLT/AVW 5th Grade camp Jorn 9am-2pm
§ Tuesday September 26: Area Wide 6th Grade Conference. Lake of the Torches Resort and Casino 9am-2pm
§ Wednesday September 27: LUHS Freshman/Sophomore Meeting 9:40-10:10-Multi-purpose Room. LUHS ILI Afterschool Leadership program 3:45-5:45 LUHS.
§ Friday September 29: LdF/NLES 5th grade Camp Jorn 9am-2pm
§ ILI/LUHS After school Learning Center: The after school learning center is open Tuesday - Thursday from 3:45 - 6:00pm in LUHS student services. Mr Burley, School Counselor, will have student services open on Mondays to work with students preparing for the ACT and other students who would like to come and do schoolwork are also encouraged to be there.
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
Nothing to report this week
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ Thank you ILI volunteers for signing up to help for the sessions!
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: If any of you would like to join “Friends of ILI” just let us know and we’ll send you the materials!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI staff is now on our second 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $121,901 of our $374,055 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.
§ Please view the current 2006-07 ILI Session Calendar at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ We have attached a pdf file of our 2005-06 ILI Annual Evaluation Report for you to look over. It’s a large document and some of you may have a hard time opening it-if so and you’d really like to see it please let us know and we’ll find a way for you to view it. We have some folks who don’t feel things are changing, or don’t see what we get to see when we work with kids everyday, asking us the question “how do you know you are making a difference?” At the NLES Board meeting this week someone asked us that question and asked for proof that we are improving relationships. That’s a hard question to answer definitively when talking about people’s feelings-but we’re trying. In addition, students meet in ILI only 15 times between 4th grade and when they enter LUHS, and we ask people to be reasonable about what we should be able to accomplish during that short time. We are trying and its complicated-read through our evaluation from last year and let us know what you think, we’re very interested in your opinions!
§ We continue to work with teachers to adjust the ILI Calendar and we appreciate everyone’s patience as we work to have our sessions on days that work well for each building and grade. It gets a bit complicated with the large numbers of ILI teams but we always find a way to make it work. Thanks again for your patience!
§ On Monday night, Bob went to the NLES school board meeting. At their August school board meeting there was some talk about not having ILI at NLES anymore due to the tight fiscal situation at NLES but they tabled discussion until we could be there. The meeting was in Boulder Junction and it went mostly well-still sounds like there is good support for the program, just concerns about the cost. We have really tried our best to accommodate NLES over the years-they have been the only school the last few years that has not contributed any dollars to ILI (we have received great support from the NLES PTC and North Lakeland Education Foundation) and their in-kind support for their busing costs and substitute teacher costs seems to have become the issue this year. We are very reluctant to have NLES pull out of ILI for what amounts to a relatively small amount of money and we offered to cover their transportation costs if they would continue in the program. While this may not seem quite fair to our other school partners who actually donate money to ILI-it seems like the only way to make it work right now. LUHS is a community made up of NLES, AVW, MHLT and LdF schools and having one school not participate would not be in the best interest of the greater community. This will probably cost ILI in the neighborhood of $2500-$3000 this school year. We will again work with NL Education Foundation and NLES PTC to try and cover these extra costs-they have been great in the past!
§ ILI staff continues to work on the ILI After School Leadership Program course description and syllabus. We also completed what students would need to accomplish and a grading system. We’re hoping to bring this all to the LUHS curriculum committee in the next few weeks for consideration to become a course for credit.
§ ILI staff has developed a unique template for facilitators to complete activity plans for each ILI session-each person can put their own part in and then we’ll merge the documents and have a complete plan for each session. This will provide us with an excellent record of our curriculum.
§ We worked hard on funding requests this week getting three of them out: North Lakeland PTC, North Lakeland Education Foundation and Honor the Earth Foundation.
§ On Thursday Bob was the guest speaker at the Lakeland Noon Rotary Club meeting in Minocqua. There was a good crowd there and lots of great questions and positive support for our efforts.
§ We received $5000 this week from Minocqua Hazelhurst Lake Tomahawk Elementary School. We will be serving over 90 students from MHLT this year and are very appreciative of their faith in our efforts and their continued support. Thank you MHLT!
§ ILI In the Media: nothing this week
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ Tuesday September 19: LdF/MHLT 4th Grade camp Jorn 9am-2pm
§ Wednesday September 20: LdF/NLES 4th grade Camp Jorn 9am-2pm
§ Wednesday September 20: LUHS ILI Afterschool Leadership program 3:45-5:45 LUHS.
§ Friday September 22: LdF(adams)/AVW 4th grade Camp Jorn 9am-2pm
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
Nothing to report this week
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ Thank you ILI volunteers for signing up to help for the sessions!
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: If any of you would like to join “Friends of ILI” just let us know and we’ll send you the materials!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI staff is now on our second 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $121,901 of our $374,055 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ Well we’re back in full swing as we had our first ILI session this week-and we’re off to a great start. Our high school session went really well and the scheduling for our elementary sessions is pretty complete after some reshuffling of sessions.
§ ILI staff continued to work on aspects of our daily sessions (lesson plans, session overviews/focus, activity details and more. Ernie came back this week after a week of teaching at the University in Reno, NV with many great ideas and new formats for us to consider. ILI staff is meeting nearly daily right now as we ramp up for the session season and we continue to improve our program ideas and strategies to better serve all of our students.
§ We are beginning to work on our annual Friends of ILI campaign-trying to gather our mailing lists for another mass mailing hopefully by late September.
§ We met this week with Pam Delfosse from Wisconsin DPI. She is the director of the Japan-Wisconsin Teachers Connect program as well as a past graduate of LUHS. She contacted us to see if there was a way to connect a group of 8 Japanese teachers coming here in October with ILI. We discussed inviting them to our October 3rd LdF/NLES 6th grade session-which we all thought would be fantastic! These teachers are willing to share their language, culture and possibly even some very special skills (one of them is a 6th degree black belt) and are very interested in seeing how we work to bring diverse groups of students together. We’re real excited about this!
§ We submitted a grant proposal this week to the Positive Alternatives Coalition.
§ We received $9859.50 this week from the UW Lacrosse for the summer camp that we hosted for them in July. It really was a great experience on our end as well as for them according to their students and staff that attended. Thank you to them for their support and willingness to collaborate on a new direction for ILI!
§ ILI In the Media: There is a nice article in this month’s LdF News about the UW LaCrosse camp we hosted..
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ Wednesday September 13: LUHS ILI Freshman/Sophomore 9:40-10:10 multi-purpose room LUHS
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
We received this email from LUHS Todd Kleinhans following last weeks Orientation Day: “Bob:
A HUGE thank you to you and your ILI staff for a great first day with freshman/transfer students this past Friday, September 1. I truly value your participation and leadership with our students here at LUHS.
Keep up the great work!” Todd
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ Joanie Fahning is already plotting and planning to assemble our mailing list for the Friends of ILI campaign –go Joanie!
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: If any of you would like to join “Friends of ILI” just let us know and we’ll send you the materials!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: We are currently in the process of building our 2006-08 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org. The calendar can be viewed at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Friday September 1, 2006
Here’s what’s been going on this week in ILI-
§ We wanted to lead this weeks update off with a very uplifting story about our LUHS ILI students. Today was the first day of school for all freshmen and we had 8 upper class LUHS ILI students come as mentors/helpers for todays activities. These students did not need to be here today, but they wanted to be there! Most of these students helped with the 8th grade Transition Day last May where they helped, were excellent role models and even led some activities. Something really positive is happening when students have this kind of enthusiasm! We really want to thank these students for their commitment and leadership: Leeah LaBarge, Jazmyn Deragon, Shanae Hickman, Kayla Norris, Chelsea Nehm, Ashley Richey, Ashley Kennedy, Carmela Maulson, Jenna Hoffman, Tiffany Wiley, Larissa LaBarge, Shylena Poupart, Crystal Poupart. THANK YOU!
§ Today was a great day! Students started the day off learning where their classes were. Mid-morning had the first “Club Fair” in the commons where students could learn about all of the different clubs and activities they could sign up for. ILI had a booth here with pictures of many students from when they were in ILI when they were little-it was great and they kids hovered around trying to find themselves-we had 28 students sign up. We helped facilitate the “Scavenger Hunt” where students went from station to station solving riddles and clues to find the next place in LUHS. The purpose of this was to have a fun way to help students find their way around their new school. After lunch, it was back out to the LUHS school forest to revisit what we started with them as 8th graders last May. Kim Wasserburger did an amazing job (as always) leading the group in theopening and closing sessions and LUHS staff took over from there. Students were in their homeroom groups once again doing various activities and initiatives in the forest-lots of magic going on today. It was great day and a very positive way to begin the new year and their new experience at LUHS.
§ The rest of the week was also very busy. ILI staff spent a lot of time attending in-service activities at LUHS as well as planning for today’s events. We also spent a great deal of time working on the After School Wednesday curriculum, calendar, concepts, how students will be able to accumulate points and how they will be evaluated. This is really coming together and we think its going to be a great opportunity for all involved.
§ On Monday we met with Howard Young Health Care Foundation director John Lund to discuss strategy for their upcoming board meeting in October. ILI will be presenting our funding request to them at that meeting. We will be sharing our year-end evaluation as well as the PAC Community Report card in the hopes of explaining our larger focus on all of the strategies we need to be working on in order to help youth make good choices in their lives. HYHC has been a long supporter and we always look forward to our discussions with them.
§ On Tuesday we met with new LdF Tribe public relations person Laura Stoffel to discuss ILI and ways we can get more info out to the public-Laura used to work at Lake of the Torches and has been very active in supporting many wonderful community programs in the community. She’s a great help and we’re lucky to have her here helping all of us!
§ On Wednesday we met with Julie Thompson from Marshfield Clinic-they have supported ILI for many years and, although it sounds like their resources are substantially less this year, Julie always goes to bat for us and something happens. We should know about this in a few weeks after their board meets.
§ We organized our fall grant writing schedule and by Tuesday next week we’ll be in full swing writing and sending, writing and sending…
§ On Thursday, Bob went to Eagle River for an organizational meeting for the Vilas County Restorative Justice program-this is really an excellent program that is currently in jeopardy as their grant is running out with no possibility for renewal. There are some very committed folks trying to keep this going, with leadership from Vilas County judge Chip Nielsen who is a very strong proponent for keeping this valuable program alive in our area. Restorative Justice is a dialogue-driven response to youth crime that has been practiced in Vilas County since 2002 in the form of Victim/Offender conferencing that allows victims and offenders the opportunities to restoratively resolve offenses. One of the most high profile of these cases involved the burning last year of Nick and Charlotte Hocking’s Waswagoning Indian Village by area youth. This case was handled restoratively, much due to the great understanding (and hearts) of the Hockings. Had it been handled in the “normal” way, these boys would most likely now be in prison. This is a tremendously important program for us to have available to all in our area-if you’d like to learn more how you can help please call Coordinator Lynn Bartling (715)543-2509.
§ We received $1000 this week from Chippewa Valley Bank and had a photo-op at their LdF branch. They have branches across northern Wisconsin and they have been supporting ILI now for a few years. Thank you to them for their continued support!
§ ILI In the Media: Nothing to report this week.
§ Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
§ None for now…sessions start in three weeks!
§ ILI/LUHS Transition:
§ See above re today’s session.
§ ILI Volunteers:
§ We had a number of volunteers helping today: John and Gretchen Spickerman, Joanie Fahning and Pam Anthony-THANKS!!
§ The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: If any of you would like to join “Friends of ILI” just let us know and we’ll send you the materials!
§ ILI Annual Fundraising: We are currently in the process of building our 2006-08 budget.
§ FOR MORE INFORMATION!! Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org. The calendar can be viewed at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative