5 Wins in a Row!

For anyone interested (and I know you all are) I thought you should know that the Baltimore Orioles have reeled off a five game winning streak! Very exciting! To add to the excitement, the O's recently called up their best prospect in 20 years, catcher Matt Wieters. Their best young position players (Wieters, Nick Markakis, Adam Jones) look great, while their young pitchers (Brad Bergesen, Brian Matusz, Jeremy Guthrie, Jason Berken) are progressing on schedule.

I'm sure you'll all have tons of questions about my Orioles, so please don't hesitate to ask. For anyone interested in joining the Baltimore bandwagon, jump on now, because it'll be filling up shortly.

See you all next post. Until then...Go O's!

Back in the Habit

I love the Todd County Tribune. They've been very enthusiastic about my submissions for publication. My recent press release about the Todd County High School National Honor Society's day on a Habitat for Humanity construction site was published in this week's edition. Included were photos of the group and the homeowner. Very cool!

The only downsides were the misspelling of Habitat in the headline ("Habit") and an error in one of the captions. I had sent over the information without typos, so I'm not sure how that happened. But I can't complain about more publicity for Habit... I mean, Habitat.

RSVP volunteer honored for service

This article isn't from South Dakota, but from my home state of Delaware. An award was given to an RSVP volunteer who has spent 12,000 hours over 34 years taking phone calls for a crisis hot line. Amazing!

Dollar Value of a Volunteer Hour

For those of you trying to put a dollar amount to your organization's volunteer labor, you may find this site useful:

http://www.independentsector.org/programs/research/volunteer_time.html

Independent Sector seems to be the primary source for these type of data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is referenced in a note in one of the tables. I gave the BLS a call because I couldn't locate the source information on their website. I'm most comfortable using government statistics when writing a grant. However, the BLS doesn't publish these data and referred me to Independent Sector. So, it all sounds legitimate.

Not surprisingly, the hourly rate for volunteers here in South Dakota is low compared to the nationwide average. Wages are comparatively low here. But the 2007 value of $14.27/hour is still significant if you ask me.

Obama gives $$ to Americorps

VISTAS:

Here are some links that I would post on the blog about Obama siging a bill and giving $$ towards Americorps. How cool is that?

Daniel fowarded some other links to me and I will post them here so all of you can check them out.

Have a fantastic Day!


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_national_service

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/21/A-Call-to-Service/?loc=interstitialskip

http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/newsroom/releases_detail.asp?tbl_pr_id=1283

http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/newsroom/releases_detail.asp?tbl_pr_id=1301

It's been a great week in Mission... and it's not even Friday yet!

Being a Year-One VISTA, I've had to take heart in the small accomplishments since arriving in Mission in November. I realize I'm still in a stage of laying groundwork for my remaining time here, as well as for those who may follow after I leave. This week, however, has brought a host of tangible results.

We recently hosted a group of first-year Stanford University School of Medicine students for a week. I drafted a press release detailing their time volunteering here on the Habitat job site and down at the IHS hospital in Rosebud. Not only did the Todd County Tribune publish it, but it was on the front page of yesterday's edition!

Today, the March issue of the Sicangu Eyapaha, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe's monthly newspaper, arrived with an article I wrote about our upcoming fundraising run/walk in June. An article dispelling some myths about Habitat should appear in the April issue.

But the biggest news of all is today's word a grant proposal I wrote several months ago will be funded! I'm absolutely thrilled. I had never written a grant proposal before starting at Habitat, so to have it accepted for almost the full amount requested is just awesome. I've since attended grant writing training; between that and the confidence gained from this successful proposal, I'm hoping this is only the first of many grants to come our way.

I've been told by both of my co-workers how happy they are to have me here. They've always praised my work. But it has been a challenge not having something concrete to show for my efforts. So, the articles and especially the grant have provided me with items I can point to and say, "Here's what I did." And it certainly makes it easier to describe my job to folks who may not know much about VISTA!

You are Wonderful!

Hello all South Dakota VISTAs! You are all wonderful and this is very exciting to have this set up. Keep up the great work!

Morgan