Showing posts with label college zone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college zone. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Volunteer Spotlight: Stephanie Rogers


Cabrini Connections volunteer Stephanie Rogers is at a turning point in her life. In 2 months she will be receiving a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice from Westwood College and will be entering the workforce. Though she doesn’t have a particular job lined up, she knows she wants to work in youth advocacy. She wants to use her talents and knowledge of the criminal justice system to help defend kids from injustice, whether it’s at school, home or in a public setting.

Stephanie has known that her calling was youth work since she was very young. Growing up on the Northwest side of Chicago, Stephanie saw a lot of friends suffer injustices growing up and came to realize that rather than give up and accept these things as inevitable, she wanted to stay positive, study hard, and work to make a difference. For Stephanie, helping others is in her nature… “obviously,” she says “I’m a Leo like Obama and we’re generous people.”

We couldn’t agree more. Since starting with us as a volunteer mentor in the Fall, Stephanie has been nothing less than generous in sharing her time and talents with us. Rather than giving up after her original mentee left the program, she has stuck around, helping us with a wide variety of things, including taking our students on a personally guided tour and information session of her school, Westwood College. She enjoyed this so much that she is now one of 2 coordinators of our new Cabrini Connections college zone. In this role she will work with our students and their mentors to ensure they’re on the right track with college admissions, assisting them with everything from searching for schools, the application process, financial aid, advice about budgeting at college…etc. She has generously decided to come in each week on both Wednesdays and Thursdays so that she can dedicate enough time to each student who needs it.

When not studying or volunteering Stephanie really enjoys writing poetry and listening to music. One of her favorite things to do is just walking around outside when the weather’s nice. However, her true passions lie with kids and her relentless desire to make other people happy. She’s completely committed to working with kids and she is confident that “If you stay motivated and working towards something you really believe in, you can’t be stopped.” Now those are words to live by. Thanks Stephanie!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

CC College Prep Program and College Zone!


In the past 2 months alone, a small band of dedicated individuals, myself, Carla Reyes, Nicole White, Jen Nolan and EL Da'Sheon have been designing and starting to implement a comprehensive college preparatory program for all of our students. This program will ensure that each and every one of our students is on the right track to follow their dreams, gain acceptance to a good school, earn the money to pay for it through scholarships and enter their desired career upon graduation. This program includes a series of biweekly college visits to area schools such as Depaul, UIC, Westwood College, Northwestern and Chicago State University as well as having college representatives from outside of Chicagoland come in and talk to our students about their school and college in general.

The next and most exciting stage of this program will be formally unveiled after winter break when we our Cabrini Connections “college zone”. This area will be staffed each tutoring session by 2 volunteers: Stephanie, who specializes in admissions counseling and Carla, who specializes in financial aid/scholarships. They will work with students, mentors and parents to ensure the kids are college-bound. They will have free reign over an area with: couches, a computer preloaded with college and scholarship applications as well as SAT and ACT test prep programs, as well as a College Prep Library compete with college guides, ACT/SAT test prep books, scholarship manuals and essay guides that can be checked out by students. Another component is a filing cabinet chock full of up to date admissions info from hundreds of schools from around the country, with an emphasis on regional and historically black schools. There will also be a file full of past admissions essays and personal statements from successful applicants so that the kids can get a better idea on how to approach these important but often misunderstood components of the college application.



I have been accumulating resources for our “College Zone” throughout the past few months, and finally, thanks to my sister Rebecca, and her friend Becca, have consolidated many of these resources into one coherent "College Zone". They were kind enough to drive into the city from Rockford IL, last week during their winter vacation and help me design, paint, and construct the space. Considering the picture above is what it looked like before they started, their efforts made a huge difference!

Now that we have such a great space, I am focusing my efforts on trying to accumulate resources for the space: things such as ACT and SAT prep books and CDs, college guides such as those published by Princeton Review, Barrons and Petersons, scholarship and financial aid guides as well as other books relating to the college experience. I am also collecting successful admissions essays, particularly the dreaded "personal statement". Therefore if you or someone you know is willing to donate any of the aforementioned materials, they would be much appreciated and utilized. Just contact me here on the blog or shoot me an email at chris.warrens.mail (at) gmail (dot) com

Monetary donations are also greatly needed and appreciated as we wrap up our holiday fundraising campaign. If you are able, please donate here to help sustain us during these difficult economic times.

Will you help us make this College Zone not only a reality, but a model to be emulated at hundreds of other tutor/mentor programs throughout the city and country? We have a lot of faith in our ability to really make a difference in these kids’ lives through this initiative. In fact, we have already seen some preliminary fruits of our labor.

One of our seniors LaFaye Garth (pictured below) and I have been working together recently on some scholarships, including the Posse and Gates Millennium scholarships. Just last week, LaFaye called me to tell me that she just got word that she is a Posse Scholar. This scholarship provides a full tuition scholarship to the school of her choice. This means she is getting a $141,272 scholarship to attend Pomona College next year to follow her dream of becoming a pediatrician!

I am certain that, once fully implemented, this new College Prep program and “College Zone” will help inspire increasing numbers of students to follow in LaFaye’s footsteps and give them the necessary resources to achieve greatness themselves. 100% of anything you can contribute this holiday season will go directly towards these ends.

Can you help us?

Friday, September 19, 2008

Volunteer Spotlight: Jen Nolan and Carla Reyes

As a counterpart to our Student Spotlight, which I discussed in my last post, I'm also going to be focusing on one or two volunteers each week to put in our "Volunteer Spotlight." The volunteer spotlight will hopefully get volunteers more engaged with the program by spotlighting their involvement with Cabrini Connections as well as some interesting biographical info.



Cabrini Connections is proud to put Carla Reyes and Genevieve (Jen) Nolan in the first Volunteer Spotlight! Carla and Jen both work at the Civic Federation, a non-partisan government research organization working to maximize the quality and cost-effectiveness of government services here in Chicago. Carla just graduated this spring from Northwestern University; it’s her first year here as a tutor. Jen is back at Cabrini Connections after taking a few years off to go to law school and get her masters in public policy. However she helped a number of Cabrini Connections students last year in the college search, application and admission process. This year, together with the Cabrini Connections staff, Carla and Jen are upping the ante. They are currently helping me to organize college visits, college counseling, application workshops and more…all to help ensure that every student at Cabrini Connections can find and attend the college, university or trade school that is right for them. Jen tutors on Wednesday nights and Carla tutors on Thursday nights, so students can reserve college/career counseling sessions with them during these times where kids can find out about and discuss the wide variety of post-secondary options that they can choose from.





Thanks Carla and Jen, for showing leadership and acting on your beliefs that every child has not only the right to a good education, but access to mentors who will nurture and inspire them.