We are seeking a Columbia student with an interest in Marketing and Social Networking to work with our non-profit organization. We are the Bloomingdale Family Program, a nationally-recognized Head Start Program with three centers close to the Columbus campus. There are two projects that need the help of someone with IT/communications skills:

1. E-letters. We need a volunteer to help us produce the simple, effective one-page e-letters that we distribute three or four times a year to donors and friends of the program. We provide text and photos, you would create the PDF for distribution. The volunteer would have an opportunity to use skills in layout and editing and would work with board members with professional experience in publications and PR.

2. Facebook. We are seeking a network-savvy student to help us upgrade our Facebook page and help us make it an effective tool in support of our fundraising and outreach.

For more information about the Bloomingdale program, please visit our website at www.bloomingdalefamilyprogram.org

Interested candidates should contact Sandy Roche, sroche1@nyc.rr.com or call 212-865-2524.

Community Impact Alumni and Supporters are invited for an evening of celebration.

Monday, December 5, 2011
6:00 – 8:30 p.m.

David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
(Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets)

Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres
Complimentary admission

RSVP required
Respond to communityimpactevent@gmail.com

To download the invitation, please click on the following link: CI Connect Invite 2011.12.05

Community Impact’s (CI) GED high school equivalency program is one of the most effective in New York City, according to an analysis of adult education in the City by the New York State Education Department. CI’s GED program, which serves nearly 500 low-income adults annually, was ranked third out of nearly 50 programs in the City and received a “highly proficient” rating, the highest designation the State bestows upon GED programs. Community Impact’s GED program emphasizes fundamental educational skills in order to maximize long-term professional results. The comprehensive program includes pre-GED, GED, and Spanish GED courses, providing opportunities for students of a wide array of educational, professional and personal backgrounds. The GED curriculum offers students instruction in a range of subjects and elite exam preparation, as well as broader assistance in developing everyday and professional skills, including time management, critical thinking, and public speaking.

GED graduates further their progress through the additional services in CI’s comprehensive Jobs Education and Empowerment Program (J.E.E.P.). In addition to GED, CI offers the Job Road employment training program, Computer Training courses and the College Road program to prepare students for higher education. Community Impact’s J.E.E.P. services are delivered by a highly talented team of students and faculty from Columbia University and Barnard College along with neighborhood residents.

Hello Community Impact volunteers! Check out this opportunity to kick off October by getting involved with the Fit for All 5K!

Fit for All 5K, taking place on Saturday, October 1, 2011, will encourage children and adults, through their participation, to raise funds and awareness for this increasing obesity epidemic. Registration will begin at 8:00 am and the 5K race will begin at 9:00 am. The kid’s race, varying in distance based on age, will begin at 11:00 am. Prizes will be awarded after the last race. For more information please visit www.fitforall5k.org. If interested in volunteering, please contact Tara Hopkins at thopkins@ymcanyc.org.

Time’s flying by, and school is starting up again in only a matter of weeks! While you’re getting ready to come back to Columbia, check out this great volunteering opportunity with Chess-in-the-Schools’ College-Bound Program:

Become a Volunteer Tutor at Chess-in-the –Schools!

The College-Bound Program (CBP) at Chess-in-the-Schools is an after-school, youth development program, dedicated to helping at risk youth gain access to top colleges and universities.

Activities within the CBP include SAT preparation classes, job skill training classes, mentoring, academic tutoring, cultural activities, and intensive chess instruction. The participants are from low-income neighborhoods throughout New York City, many of who need extra support throughout high school. That’s where you come in.

Our volunteer tutors work closely with the College-Bound Students from 4:30pm to 6:30pm, Mondays or Wednesdays, throughout the school year. During this time, they are partnered with a student or several students to help him/her with homework, study skills, standardized test prep and Regents exams. To be sure, being a tutor in any organization is rewarding experience. The College-Bound Program at CIS has an added win: Your work will result in getting low-income, typically disenfranchised, high school students to become more confident in their academic abilities, which in turn, helps shape the students they become forever.

For more information on how to become a tutor, please contact Jaclyn Garfinkel at jgarfinkel@chessintheschools.org or 212-643-0225 ext. 232.

Hey Community Impact volunteers! Check out this great volunteering opportunity from the Manhattan JCC!

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The JCC in Manhattan is hosting a Day of Service on September 11th. On this day we invite staff, members, and neighbors to participate in organized community service activities that take place in and outside of our building. Since this year will mark the tenth anniversary of the tragedies of September 11, we hope to encourage record numbers of New Yorkers to voluntarily set aside time to help others in need. The spirit of community on 9.11 is essential to remembering the tragic events that unfolded.

On the morning of September 11th, hundreds of people will come together at the JCC for breakfast and inspirational speeches. They can then register for a volunteer project, and will depart in various groups to engage in meaningful service activities in the community. In the past, among other activities, our volunteers have sorted and packed donated medical supplies for shipment to developing nations, repaired and patched donated clothing for children, visited with seniors in assisted living facilities, cleaned and planted in city parks, and prepared and delivered nutritious meals to the homeless.

So come along and volunteer- bring your friends, family, and colleagues!!! If you come in a group, you can all register for the same project and volunteer together.

On this momentous and significant day, you can do your part to give back to your community.

Consider volunteering September 11th at the JCC in Manhattan. For more information or to register, please contact Judy Gross at jgross@jccmanhattan.org and check out www.jccmanhattan.org/social-action.

Generation Citizen’s mission is to empower historically under-represented youth to be activeparticipants in the democratic system. We envision a country in which every individual isequipped and empowered to effectively participate in the political process as an engaged citizencapable of advocating for change. We fulfill our mission by training college students to partnerwith teachers to implement an action civics curriculum in lower-income secondary schools.

Generation Citizen’s focus on taking action sets us apart from other civics programs. GenerationCitizen students don’t read about the political process in a textbook, they learn it throughdirect engagement—meeting with representatives, lobbying local legislators, organizing letterwritingcampaigns, writing opinion pieces for newspapers, and making documentaries to raiseawareness about community issues they care about. Students then present their efforts to otherGC students and community leaders in a citywide Civics Day event. By uniting high school andcollege students in the program, we instill within students a sense of agency in the politicalprocess and their own lives.

Generation Citizen currently has active programs in Providence, Boston, and New York City.Over the last year, we empowered over 2,000 youth to use their voices as active citizens.

For more information and to apply to mentor please visit: www.generationcitizen.org

The Community Impact Van Amson Fellowship would like to introduce the first in a series of  reflections from our amazing summer fellows! First up is Nina Spierer, a rising senior at Barnard  College working at Art Start, a unique outreach program.

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“Revelations in E Minor”

Art Start primarily works in homeless shelters and probation offices throughout the city. An art start  motto is “process over product,” which manifests in an emphasis on the process of creating rather  then the production of a final masterpiece. Creativity (whether it is painting, drawing, writing songs or  poems) aids youth in development and increases their self-confidence. Art start serves as a source of  stability in an inherently unstable environment for the population of youth with whom we work.  Though I have often heard these values preached, since I began interning at Art Start in January, I have  never fully realized their true meanings until this week.

“More Glitter!” We made mermaids during Monday’s Art Workshop. We traced the outlines of the  mermaids on three large white boards for the students to decorate and make their own. I was working  with the 5-10 year olds; one group chose to make their mermaid entirely out of glitter. They tell  stories about their mermaids describing how and where they live.

Elisabetta decided to make the music workshop her debut; she screams and pounds chords as she  invents them on the guitar. No one can tell her she is not in front of 50,000 people nor can anyone  convince her to play quietly. On the other side of the room, two boys do not say a word and point to  the guitars; we leave the wailing Elisabetta and go into the next room to learn an e minor chord. Julissa  and Ajanay giggle as they rewrite the song from the beginning of class and tap out a beat on the  drums. They do not understand the mechanics of rhythm but know how it vibrate in their hands.

“Hip Hop won’t stay too long/cause Hip Hop is missing a leg to stand on” Jean Carlos Nieves entered  the one mic program three months ago; he confirms that his new name is Komplexx. He steps into the  booth to record his first full-length song.

These examples may not seem extraordinary, and as teaching artists, we may never see the effects of  our efforts. However we know that they are growing and developing; it is palpable in the air and  cannot be ignored. The students are excited about workshops; they love art and are eager to learn.  They make something out of nothing; they are proud of their creations. They become more  comfortable with who they are, even if they do not know who that is yet. I can never quantify these experiences; I cannot give them a name or a number. Regardless, there is something remarkable about  a 6 yr old, smiling holding up her work saying, “look this is mine, this is what I did;” it makes me  realize that there is beauty even in this shelter, even amid the screaming white walls and security  guards. There is hope even here.

–Nina Spierer, BC 2012

Dear Volunteers,

I hope your finals are going well! My name is Arielle Cahill, and I am a Masters in Public Health student at the Mailman School. I am writing because I have the opportunity to apply on behalf of Columbia/Barnard to start a student organization, principally involving undergraduate students, that I believe could fill a significant void in our New York City community.

Camp Kesem is a national 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with over ten years of experience providing free, week-long overnight summer camps for children with a parent who has or has had cancer. Camp Kesem was founded by students at my alma mater, Stanford University, and today there are sustainable programs on 23 university campuses that served over 1,200 children in 2010. However, there has yet to be a Camp Kesem serving New York City, and as a city with thousands of cancer patients, New York is home to countless children who could benefit from Camp Kesem. As an undergraduate at Stanford, I had the privilege of working both as a Camp Kesem counselor and student fundraising coordinator, and I can tell you it truly has life-changing impacts on student leaders and the children and families it serves.

I am writing specifically at this juncture because I would like Columbia/Barnard to have the opportunity to start a Camp Kesem chapter as part of the LIVESTRONG Community Impact Project. Camp Kesem is one of four organizations selected by LIVESTRONG for its 2011 Community Impact Project (more information about the Community Impact Project can be found here). LIVESTRONG will award 12 new Camp Kesem programs with seed funding of $10,000 per campus. Initial training and communication will begin this summer with the award covering a 12-month period.

To be considered for this award, student applications must indicate that they have several undergraduate students who are interested in being involved in the organization. As the director of Community Impact, I am hoping you could be of assistance in helping me reach out to the undergraduate community. Below I have provided more information about Camp Kesem, but I do need some students to indicate interest by end of the day on Friday. Please let me know as soon as possible if you can be of help.

Many thanks,

Arielle

More information:

Each Camp Kesem chapter is started by university students who work throughout the year to fundraise and plan every aspect of their camp program. Camp Kesem student leaders have consistently proven to be among the best and brightest at their schools, driven by their passion and commitment to helping others. In return for their efforts, students gain valuable real world leadership experience that often defines their career and post graduate choices (I, as an example, have chosen a career in public health). Many students feel that Camp Kesem was the most important aspect of their extracurricular college experience.

Camp Kesem is entirely student-driven, and requires input and work from a broad group of students, the community, as well as the university itself to succeed. Students implementing the program are responsible for additional fundraising for the program to succeed and continue on an annual basis. Camp Kesem allows students to become engaged within their community by providing assistance to a population that is often overlooked and has few or no support services available to them–the children of cancer patients. If selected, Camp Kesem Columbia will serve approximately 40 campers next summer (2012) and, when fully developed, over 100 children from ages 6 to 16. Camp Kesem is a secular organization open to campers of all races, religions and backgrounds.

Camp Kesem university chapters operate under the Camp Kesem National (CKN) 501(c)3 nonprofit organization status. Each campus chapter is supervised by a CKN Program Director employed by the national organization. Students work directly with national staff to oversee every aspect of their program –fundraising, counselor recruitment and training, camp programming and adherence to CKN operating standards. Each campus chapter receives administrative management from CKN, including but not limited to: accounting services, bank account management, annual audit and tax filing, state nonprofit licensing, and liability insurance.

Additional information about Camp Kesem is available on its website.

Yesterday afternoon President Bollinger was gracious enough to host Community Impact in his garden. Refreshments were served as coordinators and volunteers mingled and enjoyed delicious hors d’oeuvres.

Execs at the Garden Party

Students at the Garden Party