Youth Corps VOICE - November 2005

Meeting

•   We will be adopting a family for Thanksgiving this year.  Please bring a non-perishable (cans, boxed, etc.) food item to the meeting.

Youth corps volunteer opportunities

• Catalytic Services Inc. Conference on the Animals in the Lives of Youth- April 8-9, 2006 . We have been asked to put on a skit at the conference about the importance of the Earth Charter and animals. If you are interested in performing or attending the conference please be present at the meeting! Those who perform will attend the conference free.

•  4-H Summer Camp Counselors Needed!- The camp will be June 26-30, counselor training begins in March so you must sign up soon if interested! To qualify you must be at least 13 years old! Contact the 4-H office for more information and an application: 487-3009, speak to Elaine Shook.  

• Don’t forget to email Meghan with your environmental service project ideas! We will be voting on these at the November  meeting. If you do not have access to the Internet, call 921-3015. Right now the leading idea is to educate the community on pesticide alternatives, and to build bat houses as one such alternative. This will (hopefully) be funded through a grant by the Starbucks Foundation.

• National Youth Service Day- its time to start planning! NYSD will take place April 21-23, 2006 . We want this to be an entirely youth-led effort; come to the meeting so you can have your say!

community volunteer opportunities

• Six Days, Six Ramps- we will be participating on November 19^th, this is National Family Service Day, come to the meeting to sign your family up!   Available Time slots for Six Days, Six Ramps are 8:30-11:00 , 11:00-1:30 and 1:30-5:00 . You may sign up at the meeting or by email/phone.

Awards & scholarships

•  Youth Leaders for Literacy: 20 grants of $500 each will be awarded to youth-initiated literacy related service projects. The project must be set to begin on March 2, 2006 , Read Across America Day, and will culminate on National Youth Service Day. Visit http://www.nea.org/readacross/volunteer/youthleaders.html for more info.

• MTV and Youth Venture are offering the Hope Venture Grant: every week for the next 6 months, $1,000 grants will be given to groups of youth who want to launch a venture that will benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina. Check out www.youthventure.org for more details!

Things of Interest 

• The Africana Film Festival: all events are free and take place in the R.A. Gray Building Auditorium from 7:30-9:30 .  Films will be shown November 7^th, 8^th, 10^th, 14^th, 15^th, 17^th, 21^st, and 22^nd. For a schedule of what films will be shown contact Meghan.
• Sports Fanatics: We have an opportunity to attend FSU home basketball, soccer and volleyball games as a group. We will talk more about it at the meeting

Keeping Up with Service Hours 

• Don’t Forget to update your Record of Service every month. No more paper! Log on to www.VolunteerLEON.org/VolunteerConnection and create a free account (or log in if you already have one) and document your service hours by the 15th of every month. Having your hours documented helps us when we are preparing to present service awards and for documenting scholarship hours. This is a brand new system, so the hours you reported in the past have not been transferred yet. They will be added by this month.  In the meantime, if you want an update on your total hours, call the office at 606-1970.  Or fax us at 413-9095. Thanks!