STARS— Kids who make a difference!!

The "CNN Heroes"(Everyday People changing the world) is a great way to recognize compassionate thinkers who go a long way to make a difference to the community they live in. I believe that the thought of making a difference is always well seeded in them as chil­dren. One such post from CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/05/health/cnnheroes-gupta-glasses/

In Hope Avenue, we call these kids as "STARS". If we happen to know these kids, they enter our "Avenue Of Fame". We take pride in knowing these kids and being able to be an avenue for their compassionate and creative thinking.  Here are some of them that shine brightly as our STARS.

If you happen to know or have read about any such young compassionate thinkers, feel free to share it in this post. Attach links where we can read about these young "STARS".

December Plans and November Updates

Dream, Believe, Act Workshop

Friday Dec 12, 7:00 to 8:00 PM

West Cary Regional Library
 
Workshop Details:    

This workshop welcomes ideas / visions, simple, unique or thought provoking to make a positive impact on the community & world around us. We invite everyone, young & old to bring forth their ideas & we'll brainstorm some of them.

 

Hope Avenue was an "idea" originating from a group of kids gathered at a play date!! They believed in it & acted upon the idea.  We want to use this workshop as an opportunity to for us all to get together and discuss more such ideas. Please feel free to bring along your friends / children who have great ideas!!

 

November Updates

On Nov. 15th, we had a booth at HSNC during the Children's day celebration by Heritage. We had a great time making cards with the children who visited our booth. We had a good turn out in terms of new Youth volunteers!!
 
On Nov. 23rd, we had the Science Club / Geo-Bee workshop. We enjoyed enthusiastic participation of the 18 children who attended the workshop. We applaud Manu, Vishruth, Sanjay & Varun  who presented their projects / ideas.

Thanks to our adult volunteers - Radhika, Ramesh, Sudhakar & Savitha Ram!

Science Club:  We introduced the new Science club topics to the children that we will be working on for the upcoming year. We invite all children to present a project during our next Science Club workshop, individually or as a team.
The project should demonstrate the idea behind these questions. Only one topic needs to be picked by the team/individual for the January project. If the children get together as a team, we would like the team to be accompanied by an adult/High school mentor or coach to guide the team. Hope to have a great scientific time together!!

 

Topics:

1. Why do I see things bigger with a Binocular?
2. How does an elevator go up & down when you press a button?
3. What makes you bounce on a trampoline?
4. Why is it foggy in the morning?
5. How does a plant know when to suck up water?
 
Geo-Bee: We completed Part I of "Spot me on the Map". We will share details about our "Spot me on the Map - Part II" for the upcoming  workshop soon. 

Savitha Ram, who co-ordinated the workshop discussed about Coral Reefs. We are inviting children to present information about the same during the next workshop in January.

Sincerely,
Lalitha Vasudeva

November Plans and October Updates

Hope Avenue Booth @ HSNC
When: Saturday, November 15
This booth is on the occasion of Children's Day celebrated by Heritage Association. This would be a good opportunity for us to spread the word about Hope Avenue and our good intentions. To volunteer and earn your service hours & satisfaction, this is what you as a youth or adult volunteer need to do:
Send an email to hopeavenue@gmail.com and let us know if you would be able to volunteer at the booth.
Let us know which of the following activities you are interested:
1. Organize things and activities within booth
2. Engage people who visit the booth about HA and take care of new member registration
3. Organize a Mini bracelet or greeting cards workshop
4. Take pictures
5. Help clean up & closing the booth.

Academic Fun Workshop (Geo-Bee & Science Club)
When: Sunday, November 23, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM
Where: West Cary Regional Library

Geo-Bee:
We are beginning with our new plans for the upcoming year. We will split the entire curriculum into 6 parts. You will be sent a separate email about the preparation for November.
1. November - Spot me on the map - Part 1
2. January - Spot me on the map - Part 2
3. March - All about the place we live in...
4. May - Extremes, Facts & more...
5. July - Handbook of definitions...
6. September - Review Review Review with a Geo-pardy game...

Science Club:
Youth Volunteers, Get ready to show & share your science experiments ! Please email me in advance if you plan to share something...We have exciting spontaneous sessions, brainstorming activities planned for this meeting.

October Updates:
1. Triange Heart Walk: We participated in the Triangle heart walk and there were 7 participants from Hope Avenue. We have collectively donated close to $400 towards this cause.

2. Bracelet Workshop: We had a total of 4 children & 2 adults participate in this month's bracelet workshop.Hope our commitment & passion grows!

Regards,
Lalitha Vasudeva
www.thehopeavenue.org

October Plans

Here are our plans for this month. Hope to see you a good turn out for all the events!

Sunday October 5, 2:00 to 5:00 PM
Information Booth @ Gandhi Jayanthi Celebrations
Where: Venture Hall in Marbles Kids Museum
It would be good to have youth volunteers at the booth to explain our mission. Please let me know if you can attend this.

Saturday, October 18 - 1:00 to 3:00 PM
Bracelet Workshop & Story time for tots
Where: Starbucks, 4834 NC Hwy 55, Durham, NC 27713
Story time will be organized by Starbucks volunteers and we will make more bracelets as always!

Sunday, October 19 - 3:00 PM
Triangle Heart Walk
Everyone knows someone affected by heart disease or stroke. For those we love, the Hope Avenue team will be walking in this year's Start! Heart Walk. We want to raise funds for the American Heart Association and need your help to reach our donation goals. We are raising critical dollars for heart disease and stroke research and education.
Senthil Murugesan will be our team captain and please use the information below to join us for the walk.

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Some email systems do not support the use of links and therefore this link may not appear to work. If so, copy and paste the following into your browser: http://startwalk.kintera.org/trianglenc/murugesan_senthil?faf=1&e=1922877616
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Regards,
Lalitha Vasudeva
www.thehopeavenue.org

September Plans

Saturday, Sep 6th, TRISHNA

5:30 to 8 PM @ Stewart Theatre, NC State University.

Two cents of Hope is presenting their annual event Trishna at Stewart Theatre, NCSU. We join them to present our achievements and showcase the booth. Please find more information about tickets & parking in this link:
http://www.twocentsofhope.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=32&Itemid=69

Saturday, Sep 13th, CONNEXIONS 2008

4:00 to 8:00 PM @ Atrium Textiles Library, NCSU

This is Hope Avenue's own annual event. We are presenting this with the support of our friend, "Two Cents of Hope". This will be an evening filled with fun, games, talent show and food. I have attached the flyer with this email.

We welcome our youth members to show case their talent and show their support for a great cause! On this important day of Hope Avenue, we want to encourage and enjoy the special talent that our youth volunteers possess. Please pre-register the item you can present with me, giving your full name, item description, duration and any pre-requisites.

Let me know through email ( hopeavenue@gmail.com) or call me at 919-523-3680 .

For this event, we also plan to have dinner followed by the programs. So all of you are welcome to relax and enjoy !!!! Spread the word around with the attached flyer!

August Updates

What we accomplished in August...

August 16: Science Club & Geo-Bee
We had great participation from the children.
Vaishnavi shared her "Draw with the Sun" project. Manu presented her project on "Electro magnetism" & a quiz on magnets. Jai enthusiastically shared his Robo project, which he had programmed.
As an additional bonus, the children got to take home some Kodak memories with the Olympic torch at the library torch event.

Hope Avenue sincerely thanks Radhika Rao & Sai Gopalan for making this a great success!

August 30: The Heritage festival, which was planned for August 30 has now been moved to December 6th.

Planning Sessions:
August has been a great month of planning for the upcoming events.
1. The donation amounts have been split for this year's projects. We will be publishing the same during our upcoming event, Connexions.
2. The calendar team has put together their ideas and are working busily on the drafts for the 2009 Calendar.
3. There is a planning team working together for Connexions also.
Please email hopeavenue@gmail.com if you are interested to be a part of any of the planning sessions.

July Updates

On Saturday, the 19th of June, 2008, Hope Avenue organized its 4th Bracelet workshop at Starbucks on highway 55 in Durham. The coming together of Kids and Color, Strings and Beads resulted into a plethora of energy and activity. With more than 15 kids, some accompanied by their mothers, bracelets were made with Stretch Magic elastic and a variety of Glass beads. The concepts of symmetry and color-coordination emerged to show how kids find their way to perfection when given an opportunity to channel their creativity. Some children experimented with making ear-rings and anklets which turned out beautifully.

Starbucks staff was very kind and showed their support by offering rounds of sample drinks for everyone. The buzz of the bracelet workshop caught on and we had some staff members requesting for bracelets to be made by kids especially for them. The workshop proved to be a success with over 20 bracelets being made. Hope Avenue was able to raise $39 along with gaining the support from StarBucks and their staff, for future events and workshops...

-Shweta Kautia

This is a milestone achievement for Hope Avenue, when one of our founder youth members, Shona Sharma volunteered to conduct this workshop. She proved her leadership by volunteering to conduct the workshop.

She was a great team player when the 6 children who attended the workshop worked with her to make her plan a huge success. We hope to inspire many youth leaders. Hope Avenue welcomes you young leaders to share their talent & creativity...

Thanks to our dedicated volunteers, Ram & Savitha who sparked our connections with Starbucks, Highway 55! Our volunteers worked together with theirs to add a spark to every car that was washed ! We thank our Youth volunteers were - Sneha, Apitha, Shona, Aditi, Manu & Meghna to spend their Saturday morning trying to make a difference !! We washed around 22 cars and collected a donation of $210.

The Yard sale remenants have been donated to "Helping Hands Forever", an organization which helps Foster care children. Our big thanks to the Starbucks team(Danielle, Jackie, Cay) & Jevonda, the store manager who made this event possible !! We are looking forward to more events with this team...

On a warm summer afternoon, our young volunteers, Shruti & Neyha had a lemonade stand in their neighbor hood. They had lots of fun and did a great job spreading the cause of Hope Avenue !! Great job girls!!

Plans for August:

Science Club & Geo-Bee
When: August 16, 1:45 to 3:45 PM
Where: West Cary Regional Library
Youth volunteers, get ready to show & tell your experiments!

Funds Distribution for Projects

When: August 16, 3:45 to 4:45 PM
Where: West Cary Regional Library
Youth volunteers, Please continue with us after the workshop if you want to know how the funds you raised so far are going to reach those in need...

Heritage Festival
When: August 30, 4 to 10 PM
Where: Hindu Society of North Carolina
Hope Avenue will have a booth & little treats during this event!

Sincerely,

-Lalitha Vasudeva

Behalf of Hope Avenue team