Drewbie does the Johnson Intern Program

The blog is back by popular demand for another year of my life. This year, in addition to my personal bloggings, I am taking the suggestion of my buddy AuburnTyler and adding a football blog to my repertoire to keep up my college football musings. Check that out at drewbiesnacksfootball.blogspot.com. A week 1 review will be posted by Monday each week.

This year, I am participating in the Johnson Intern Program. I am living in a spiritually intentional community with 7 other 22-25 year old college grads from around the country. Each of us works Monday through Thursday with a non-profit organization in the Chapel Hill/Durham/Carrboro, North Carolina area and brings our experiences back to the community. On Fridays this fall, we are participating in a servant leadership class. During the spring, we will be using our experiences and observations to create, plan, and carry out a community project for which we will write a grant and do all the leg work. Here are the roomies! We will seek to follow the five values of communion, co-creation, compassion, collaboration, and character in their purest and simplest forms.

My job placement is with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA's Boomerang and Darkness to Light programs. Boomerang is a community based alternative to suspension program for middle and high school students in Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools. Boomerang provides a supportive environment for students who are short term suspended, advocates for youth in the community, and provides resiliency based training to the community. Students participating in Boomerang complete a substance abuse assessment tool, take part in a strengths assessment process, have the opportunity to stay on pace with their school work, engage in skill building and information group sessions, and are provided the space to voice their goals to staff, parents/guardians and school representatives. At Boomerang, I will serving as an assistant to the academic director, communicating with teachers and schools and helping the students to progress academically while they are not at school.

The YMCA's Darkness to Light initiative is a part of a larger movement that seeks to provide education about the prevention of child sexual abuse. The goal for the program is to have 7,300 members of our community trained in the Stewards of Children Program in the next five years. The idea is that information is spread exponentially, and that each person who is trained will affect those around them, and thus help to extend safety all throughout the community. I will be trained next week in Stewards of Children and then be trained as a facilitator to be able to train others. Additionally I will be working to create awareness for the program and to recruit and support community partners in expanding the program and training members.

Sorry there isn't much wit in this post. Like Joe Friday, just the facts here. Post your questions in the comments and follow drewbiesnacksfootball.blogspot.com if Bobby Boucher's mother's version of the devil is appealing to you.