YVC Helps Provide Christmas at DOVE Center

The D.O.V.E Center is a safe, confidential shelter and support center for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. As a Christmas gift to the women of the D.O.V.E. Center and their families, the Dixie Elks Lodge hosted and provided a Christmas party and dinner. Our YVC group was recruited to entertain the children at the party and provide some Christmas cheer! Team Leaders Becky, Angi, and Sheena lead the way as members of YVC helped children make homemade Christmas cards and ornaments. They also made bell necklaces for the children and colored pictures of Santa with them. Everyone had a lot of fun talking and laughing with each other. The evening ended perfectly as a wind from the North Pole blew in the man in red and white to give out gifts to the children.

Turkey Day at the Library!

The last Monday of each month, St. George branch of Washington County Library hosts Family Night at the Library. Throughout the year presenters from the community teach children and their families about various topics. Each month our YVC members get to come out and help the presenter with set up and any activities and games they have planned. For November's Family Night, Sheena Rosander (YVC team leader) told the story of Tom the Turkey and his struggle to control his emotions. Tom's struggle ended with him learning patience and having a colorful plume to remind him of this lesson. After the story, YVC members helped the participants create a picture of Tom using colorful beans, noodles, and rice for his feathers. A couple of the YVC members also got to lead Thanksgiving themed games for the children.

Making Candy, YUM YUM!!

Candy making is a rich tradition associated with the holiday season. Unfortunately, with our busy schedules in this day and age and the ease of store bought goodies we have all but lost this wonderful art. YVC in Washington County teamed up with the 4-H club in St. George to revive homemade candy making and serve our community.

Each year the Jubilee of Trees fundraiser is held to benefit the Dixie Regional Medical Center. On November 13th we got together to learn to make treats such as taffy, cookies, and toffee so we could make them and turn them in to the Jubilee of Trees. The Jubilee will sell them in their Sweet Shop. We got a work out pulling the taffy and had a bit of a sugar rush tasting our contributions. It was a fantastic afternoon!

FNL is Halloween Celebration

Members of the Youth Volunteer Corps of Washington County invited kids (as well as mom and dad or another responsible adult) celebrating Halloween this year to join them on Monday, October 26 for Family Night at the Library. "You’ll be taking part in an ancient tradition which started long before candy corn and costumes were invented," noted Sheena Rosander, AmeriCorps team leader who asked attendees of all ages and in a variety of costumes - from gruesome to adorable - "Do you know when Halloween started? When did people begin trick-or-treating? Why do people dress up in costumes on the last day of October?"

In the downstairs conference room at the main branch of the Washington County Library, located on the southwest corner of the new Town Square park in downtown St. George, Sheena, along with five youth volunteers welcomed 40 children and their parents to a "spooktacularly" good time which included making 3D paper pumpkins, interactive Halloween storytelling adventures and spooky games. And, each family got to take home a free pumpkin, as a gift from the Youth Volunteer Corps of Washington County.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE DAY!

Saturday, October 24 was National Make-A-Difference Day. Members of the Youth Volunteer Corps of Washington County partnered with St. George City Parks and Recreation, The Learning Center for Families and St. George Rotary Club to make this event successful and fun for everyone. There were four service sites throughout the county. The Learning Center in St. George, LaVerkin and Hildale welcomed volunteers to help prepare the ground for low-impact pavers in areas where very young children play. The fourth site was the St. George SK8 Park, an ongoing service project in a partnership with the city and the St. George Rotary Club. Working side-by-side, youth volunteers and Rotarians planted shrubs and bushes and 23 trees to shade the area from the hot Dixie sunshine and to beautify the park. Everyone had a fantastic time and worked hard to Make-A-Difference in the community.

Hurricane Bike Rodeo

Each year the Hurricane Police Department sponsors a Bicycle Rodeo to help check the safety of children bikes in the community and, through a series of little obstacles, teach children how to ride their bikes safely. Hurricane High School's Interact Club and the Youth Volunteer Corps of Washington County teamed up to help the police department run this event.

It was a lot of fun teaching and testing the kids about safe bicycle practices such as riding on the right side of the road, signaling, stopping swiftly, and more. The event lasted about 2 hours and left us excited to help out again next year.

AmeriCorps Team Leaders Return from Kansas City

The 20th annual conference of the Youth Volunteer Corps of America was held in early October in Kansas City, Missouri. Those in attendance included YVCA founder David Battey, Wendy Elliott (YVCA director of Affiliate Services), Jenn Beard (YVCA director of Program Development) and Oheema Kumi (YVCA Program Assistant); 33 of 55 program directors and more than 50 (mostly fulltime) new AmeriCorps members, including 7 from YVC of Washington County. Sheena Rosander (fulltime at the Volunteer Center of Washington County), Debb Waggoner (halftime at the Volunteer Center of Washington County), Becky Cox (fulltime) and Angi Cox (halftime - both with Community Education), Mariah Hurst (fulltime with the Utah Commission on Volunteers), Marissa Williams and Stacy Gray (both fulltime with the Housing Authority of Salt Lake County), who after 2 days of training were officially sworn in by Michael Laverty, Missouri state director of the Corporation for National and Community Service. During their year of service in YVC of Washington County, each AmeriCorps team leader will coordinate service and service-learning in the community involving youth volunteers, age 11-18.

In the past, AmeriCorps members with YVC of Washington County have coordinated such repeating activities as CANstruction, youth court, Teen SERT, Family Night at the Library, Reading Rocks, many after school programs and have mentored dozens of young students in computer technology. YVC volunteers have also assisted with a variety of community events, including the St. George Marathon, and the Huntsman World Senior Games. Of course, AmeriCorps team leaders have also coordinated activities on national service days (Make-A-Difference Day [the last Saturday in October], Family Volunteer Day [the Saturday before Thanksgiving], Youth Service Day [the Saturday of National Volunteer Week], Join Hands Day [usually in May], Patriots Day [September 11, since 2001], and Martin Luther King Day [second Monday in January]).

Not pictured here, because they were not required to attend the national conference, are Judea Runs Through, Sherryll Snodgress and Dustin Flowers all serving with the Washington County School District Computer Mentoring Program and hundreds of youth volunteers who are building a lifetime ethic of service through YVC!

Canstructions winners

Here are the other pictures for our Canstruction project. These are pictures of 4 out of the 5 winners.

• "Strike Out Hunger"

Team was Bloomington WalMart/Sponsor was Bloomington WalMart, they won "Best Meal"

• "Planting Seeds for the Future"

Team and Sponsor was Washington County School District Mentoring Program , they won Juror's Favorite

• "Service Above Self"

Team Was Anna Lindsey, VISTA, Sponsor was Red Rock Morning Rotary Club, they won "Creativity"

• "Justice is Served"
  

Team was Washington County Youth Court, VISTA, Sponsor was Northwestern Mutual Financial Network & Zion's Way Hospice, they won Structural Integrity

• "Going Dutch" (not pictured)

Team was Eric Olsen, VISTA, Sponsors were Equity Mortgage, Little Valley 4th ward, Iceberg Drive-in

One "Can" make a difference!

August 12th, 2009 was our annual Canstruction project. The Washington County Fair hosted the event this year. Canstruction is an event where teams get together and build incredible structures made entirely from canned goods. The Canstruction teams raised tons of food to build their structures which at the end of the county fair is donated to local food banks. There were 10 teams this year and 5 of the ten were YVC teams. We were excited with the participation and the unique structures that were created. Five Category awards were given including: Best Meal, Best use of Labels, Structural Integrity, Creativity, and Judge's choice. All the pictures are not available to me at this time, however, we will post them as they come available. The pictures included in this post are from the Washington County Youth Court structure of the Supreme Court Building titled "Justice Served".

YVC Car Wash

To raise money for Youth Volunteer Corps service projects, we decided to get together one morning and have a free car wash. The owner of Iceberg let us have it there, and it was a huge success. The car wash was free, but donations were accepted also. We were able to raise quite a bit for the YVC, and when it was over, Iceberg gave us free ice cream cones to beat the heat. Everyone had a great time raising money for the YVC.

Climb to Conquer Cancer

When 5Am rolls around, most people are usually in bed catching some Z's, but not our youth volunteers! They met up at the Red Mountain Spa in Ivins to help with the Climb to Conquer Cancer, a 6 mile hike to increase awareness and raise money to find a cure to cancer. Our volunteers helped set the event up, paint faces, give water to the hikers and even helped people on the rock climbing wall. The climb was a great event and we all had a great time helping out.

Hurricane Independence Day Celebration

Hurricane City hosted a city-wide celebration on July the 4th. Our YVC branch in Hurricane was excited to be invited to be involved. They manned about 20 game booths at the festivities and had a blast doing it. Many families came with their children and participated in the games. Prizes could be "purchased" with tickets won from playing the games. Serving the City that morning was a fun and fulfilling way to show our patriotism.

Paint the Town Red

On Tuesday morning, about 20 youth came out to "Paint the Town Red!" We had red paint donations from Home Depot, KWAL, Sherwin Williams, Mountain West Paint Distributors and the City of St. George so that we could split into teams and get fire hydrants painted. We met at the water park on Main Street in St. George so that when we were all done, we could play around in the park. We learned how to work together and had a great time doing it!

Harvesting Good Times

On a Wednesday morning, a few of our YVC members got up early to help weed, harvest and clean up the Santa Clara Community Garden. When we got there, we definitely had our work cut out for us. But when we all started working together, we got done in no time. The garden looked great when we were finished with it, and we got to keep some of the fresh vegetables that are being grown there. It was a great morning!

Early Bird Gets the Worm!

Bright and early Saturday morning the Hurricane YVC group gathered on State Route 9 to support the Hurricane Half Marathon and 5K. We lined up to hand out water and Gatorade to dedicated runners who came out to compete.
We got a little wet in the process of learning the best way to hand off the drinks to those who ran past. After a while, though, we could pass a cup to a runner as smoothly as an Olympic runner passes off a baton. We were the last aid station in the race and it was neat to see the determination as the men, women, and even children began that last mile to the finish line.

Posted by: Sheena Rosander

GYSD Kicks Off Landscaping at Rotary SK8 Park

We were a little late for Earth Day (Wednesday, April 22) but perfectly timed to kick off National Volunteer Week (April 27 - May 3) when 25 youth - and adult - volunteers gathered at the Rotary SK8 Park on Global Youth Service Day (Saturday, April 25) to spread 15 cubic feet of redwood mulch at the entrance of this very popular recreational venue. Rotarians, members of the local Rotaract Club, AmeriCorps team leaders Angie, Billie and Sheena, and an assortment of yv's from the Youth Volunteer Corps of Washington County, gave up a portion of their Saturday, April 25 to celebrate the contribution of youth volunteers to meeting the needs of every community! Mother Nature cooperated, delivering a cooler-than-usual late April day for the first of many service projects planned at the 2-acre, city owned and managed SK8 Park.

This is the first of many service and service-learning projects at the SK8 Park which was completed in 2005, but never landscaped or lighted due to the city's lack of funding. Mark your calendar and watch for more service opportunities on National Make-A-Difference Day (Saturday, October 24) and National Family Volunteering Day (Saturday, November 21).

Clean Sweep at Confluence

Saturday, March 28th 2009 we went to the Confluence Park in LaVerkin, UT and cleaned up the trash! We had a total of 24 volunteers show up to help us with this event, which is wonderful! It was a beautiful, sunny day with an average temperature of about 70 degrees. As we strolled through on the winding trail through the center of the park, we talked, explored, and picked up debris. Finally, when we had reached the summit once again, we relaxed and enjoyed some refreshments!
Thanks to all who came. It would have been a daunting task for only a few of us, but was a fairly simple task with all who came. The only thing I would change about this event.....WE DIDN'T GET PICTURES! DARN!

Thanks again!

Dustin Thompson
Youth Group Leader/Volunteer Coordinator

Spring Cleaning at the Community Center

Hey Everyone! This is Sheena at the Volunteer Center. On Saturday, March 21st, we had the opportunity to serve the Washington County Community Center. The community center is a new facility in Washington and is used by the community for various recreational activities and events. Our project was to take out all of the tables and chairs that the center uses for rentals and give them a good cleaning. At first it seemed like a daunting task for the six of us but we worked together and got it done in no time. It was a great sunny day to work outside, listen to some tunes, and get a little wet. We enjoyed talking with the site supervisor, Don, about the different events that take place there. It was nice to help the community center prepare for their busy summer season.

CANstruction Teams Needed!

Join the Youth Volunteer Corps of Washington County in our efforts to organize CANstruction teams! Some of you may be thinking "What is CANstruction?" Simply put, CANstruction is a very creative way of collecting cans of food to give to those who are in need. What will happen is there will be about 20 CANstruction teams who will compete in a can-structure building competition on Wednesday, August 5 at the Washington County Fairgrounds. The teams will choose a design of anything they can build out of cans. Whether the cans are purchased, or donated or otherwise aquired (by honest means of course). The choice of cans is critical for the design you would like to create. The teams then practice setting up their structure a few times before the competition. 5 will represent the team at the actual competition, held on Wednesday, August 5 at the Washington County Fair. If you are interested, call the Volunteer Center of Wasington County at 674-5757.