Thursday, January 28, 2010
Generations Incorporated is the 2010 Social Innovator in Healthy Aging
In January, the Social Innovation Forum selected us as the 2010 Innovator in Healthy Aging. This is an incredible honor for us, as well as a huge opportunity.
This award couldn’t come at a better time. There is tremendous anticipation, excitement, and change in the air in public school circles because of Race to the Top and the Investment in Innovation (i3) funds through the U.S. Department of Education. These funding streams will open the door for major education reform and school improvement in Massachusetts.
Dr. Carol Johnson of the Boston Public Schools has well-positioned the district for Race to the Top. She has taken strong leadership on the Education Reform Act signed into law on January 19 and has worked tirelessly on her plan for school improvement.
At the same time, Lester Strong, CEO of Experience Corps, and other leaders in the network are forging a new strategic plan to scale Experience Corps and create new standards for affiliation. Our hope is that thousands of older adults will become engaged across the country to bring highly effective literacy support to those children most in need of help.
Our partnerships with both groups have tremendous bearing on our own strategic thinking. It is an incredibly exciting time to think about what could be.
Our 2010 Innovator award will help as we move through the planning stages of scaling our program. The award has many benefits, including substantial pro bono support from the Social Innovation Forum (SIF) and its parent organization, Root Cause. This support will allow us to clarify our vision, crystallize our goals, strengthen our message, and solidify key relationships.
We are very grateful to the Social Innovation Forum for the honor of being the 2010 Innovator for Healthy Aging.
To learn more:
Social Innovation Forum: www.socialinnovationforum.org
Race to the Top: www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html
Investing in Innovation Fund: www2.ed.gov/programs/innovation/factsheet.html
Experience Corps: www.experiencecorps.org
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Meet our new Board Members: Dick Patton & Luke Wilkinson
Dick Patton leads Egon Zehnder International’s Global Chief Marketing Officer Practice Group. Mr. Patton works with clients on the recruitment of senior level executives in a spectrum of industries, including consumer goods and services, digital media, financial services, and retail.
Prior to joining Egon Zehnder, Mr. Patton was an executive and a consultant in the consumer goods industry in large and small companies. He was Senior Vice President of Business Development and Marketing for Affinnova, an MIT-affiliated technology company that provides innovation and new products consulting to large consumer companies. Before that, Mr. Patton was a strategy consultant working with start-up consumer products and consumer health services companies.
Previously, Mr. Patton was a general manager and marketer with The Coca-Cola Company, where he was the GM for a beverage business in North and South America, and he managed several well-known brands in the US, including: Coca-Cola, Sprite, Nestea, Fresca and Tab. While with Coca-Cola, he launched five new products and won a variety of awards for his marketing initiatives. His work has been featured in BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and (PBS) Frontline. He began his career in sales and marketing with Frito-Lay, Inc.
Mr. Patton lives in Concord, MA with his wife and three children.
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Luke Wilkinson is a research analyst for Riskmetrics Group. He joined Riskmetrics in October 2009, after the company he had been working for since November 2007, KLD Research & Analytics, was acquired by the company. He has spent most of his time with KLD and Riskmetrics focused on the environmental, social, and governance performance of oil and gas companies and basic materials companies. Additionally, he is the research manager for the company’s Global Environmental Index series. He joined KLD after graduating with his BA in Public Policy Studies at Duke University. Luke grew up in Maryville, Tennessee.
Welcome to our new board members. We’re fortunate to have such new talent!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
MLK Day – Where Did You Serve?
On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day–now touted as “A Day On” rather than simply a day off–our AmeriCorps State members, VISTAs, Experience Corps members and staff found multiple ways to take part in the call to service this year.
On Saturday, we served at the annual Martin Luther King Breakfast hosted by the Yawkey Boys & Girls Club. The volunteers greeted and served breakfast to hundreds of guests at the event which featured Governor Deval Patrick as keynote speaker. We were also treated to performances by club members, many of whom receive literacy tutoring through Generations’ program at the club.
On Monday, we fanned out across the city to serve in various community projects: In East Boston, we joined nearly 200 volunteers at Zumix to help move boxes and instruments from its current location to the renovated, LEED-certified, firehouse two blocks away, where free music programming for youth will continue in March. Instead of hiring a truck to move, these volunteers passed boxes through the snow and sleet, brigade-style, to the firehouse. It took all 200 volunteers, but the move was complete after just 45 minutes! The event concluded at the new space with youth-led musical performances, tours, and chili. In addition to MLK Day, all of our VISTAs spent Friday, January 8th , packing boxes at Zumix to prepare for the big move!
In our downtown office, several of us dedicated three hours to creating new bookfolders for our Reading Coaches program. At this event we created eye-catching folders to accompany the books used in our one-on-one literacy program. The folders not only help pique the child’s interest in the story, but also help guide our volunteers to build comprehension and engage the student in fun writing activities about the story.
We also served in Dorchester at the annual MLK Day of service hosted by City Year. Here we served alongside several other Boston-based AmeriCorps groups to help transform spaces at the Boston Latin Academy and John D. O’Bryant Community Center. At the O’Bryant, we worked with other volunteers to rejuvenate multiple rooms with fresh coats of paint and artwork. Those at the BLA painted colorful murals that would adorn the walls of both buildings.
What a great crew of volunteers who not only give to Generations, but other organizations that are doing great work throughout the city. Where did you serve?
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Generations Incorporated’s Experience Corps Program Named 2010 Greater Boston “Social Innovator”
Generations Incorporated was one of six innovative nonprofit organizations in greater Boston selected as the 2010 “Social Innovators” by Root Cause and its Social Innovation Forum for demonstrating promising solutions to greater Boston’s pressing social problems. Read the SIF press release here!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Showing Our Faces
We’re excited to present some of the real faces of our program by revealing the results of our recent Photo Contest conducted by the AmeriCorps State Members. This competition consisted of 5 categories: Cutest Kid, Best Male ECM, Best ACM Action Shot, Best ECM Action Shot and Best Site Shot.
Cutest Kid
Best Male ECM
Best ACM Action Shot
Best ECM Action Shot
Best Site Shot
Without actually going to a Generations Incorporated Program Site, it might be hard to envision what one might look like. We offer three programs: Reading Coaches (RC), Classroom Literacy (CL) and Lunchtime Mentoring (LM) in 12 Greater Boston public schools and after-schools. Within these three programs there are many faces consisting of four volunteers groups (AmeriCorps State, AmeriCorps Vista, Experience Corps and Commonwealth Corps) and three different age groups (K-5 Graders, recent college graduates and Older Adults).
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Photo of the Week- January 14, 2010
This image conveys the powerful force of mentoring, and how it is one of the oldest and most sacred of relationships.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Welcome to Our New Website!
Hey all! Welcome to our shiny new website! For the past couple of months Amelia, myself, and some Taproot folks have worked painstakingly on this. We’re very happy with the outcome.
From my perspective, as the Technology *VISTA at Generations Inc., the website has been a fun process. I’ve learned far more about the organization than I could have ever wished for, how to represent a non-profit, and how pull information from everyone together to work on one project. It feels incredibly accomplishing to have a finished product to show for the work.
The best thing about this website is the ability to be updated easily by people who do not have extensive web development experience. That translates into an organic website that is constantly evolving to reflect the Generations Incorporated environment. Some other nifty features include…
- The blogs have now been integrated into the website. This includes the AmeriCorps blog, Mary’s blog, and the brand new In the News Blog. You get all your GI goodness in one click.
- A dynamic calendar for exciting GI event info.
- A contact form so that you can let us know how much you like our new website on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 is absolutely, positively lovin’ it. 10 means you would take a bullet for the website.
- A more simple, clearer interface.
This website is possible through the following people:
- The Taproot Foundation team: Dave, Ronnie, Lauren, Mary Beth, Esther, and Jeff
- Generations Inc Personnel who reviewed the website ad nauseam: Mary, Tara, Katie Kelley, and others
- Amelia, for putting the majority of the content in
We always appreciate feedback. If there are changes that you think would be appropriate, then don’t hesitate to contact us about it! As mentioned before, the site will be changing constantly, so tune back often.
Thanks and enjoy,
Karthik
