Jennifer Palmiotto wanted to share this update on the Community Initiative to Support Walpole Youth.  The progress is great to hear.  There remains more to be done so if you’d like to be involved, I am sure she would love to hear from you. – Lil

Greetings!

It has been a year since the Walpole Youth Initiative held a Community Meeting to discuss ways to support and enrich support for the area’s youth and families. This well attended meeting resulted in a number of good ideas. Since last October, two of the ideas discussed during this forum have come to fruition.

1. Meeting Waters YMCA has started an after school program at the Walpole School.

2. A committed group of Walpole Volunteers has initiated a Big Brothers Big Sisters program at the Walpole School. The Director of BBBS praised the success of Walpole’s mentoring group acknowledging how difficult it is to start a new program. There are a number of Big Brothers Big Sisters signed up and meeting with their Little Brothers and Sisters. If you would like to become involved or even be a substitute BB/BS, please contact Sheila Lennon or Natalia Goraski for more information. Their email addresses are: ngorawski@chroma.com and smlennon57@hotmail.com

A third idea was the creation of a website and FaceBook page which would provide information about local activities and resources for youth and families. Last January a group of community volunteers and students from the Fall Mountain Regional High School began work to create the website.

A contest was held to name the site, some content has been collected, and quite a bit of time and resources have gone into building a site. This project has been put on “pause” because one of our key players, Chuck Bingaman, has moved to California. We hope to reactivate this committee in 2014 and welcome any interested volunteers.

Many thanks go out to everyone who helped to organize the Community Meeting. Too many names to list here… but you know who you are. A special thank you to Principal, Sam Jacobs and Glenn Stan for attending the event, providing important feedback and for their roles in making the after school program and Big Brothers Big Sisters program a reality.

Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday.

Jen