Reel Talent Productions Keeps the Cameras Rolling This Summer.

The Cabrini Connections' program offers a lot more than the one on one tutoring/mentoring structure that most are familiar with. In the Cabrini Connections' program we offer what are similar to electives in high school for our youth as extra learning opportunities in the form of Clubs. Currently we have an Art, Writing, Technology, and Video and Filmmaker's Club that any and all of the students that are enrolled in the one on one tutoring sessions can sign up for.

All of the Clubs do the majority of their work during the academic year, and have the option of continuing on throughout the summer months. This summer our Video and Filmmaker's Club, led by Northwestern University alumni and Cabrini Connections' volunteer Shu Ling Yong, decided to not only continue on this summer, but to apply for a Department of Family and Support Services' Mini Grant. The grant was approved in the early summer by the City to fund the Club's project of researching and putting together a documentary about health of young females and how their male counterparts seem to have more opportunities than they have when it comes to sports and fitness.

The Club's leader, Shu Ling Yong, recruited two co-leaders for the summer project, Jane Wong and Jon Vogel and together they interviewed and screened their three student interns. Cabrini Connections' veteran students Melissa Young and Marquita Fisher, along with prospective Cabrini Connections' student Alisha Ward have already begun their work of researching, interviewing, and filming for their project. They have also been working closely with the staff and participants of the Girls In The Game organization to gain more knowledge and take in key pointers for their summer project.

The student interns stopped into the Cabrini Connections' program today to do some work on-site and was visited by a very special guest. Former 1st NFL draft pick and Chicago Bear, John Tait, stopped into the program. I was able to show him around the facility, share more about the Cabrini Connections' program, and he was able to interact with the group. Before leaving the group left the facility they paused for a group picture with the special guest. Mr. Tait told me before exiting the building, "Keep up the great work!" And with more consistent connections to the necessary resources to be successful...we plan to!

During the summer months when the activity in the program slows down in comparison to the school year, it is nice to not only have the students and volunteers come into the facility, but it's also nice to see the students and volunteers continuing to work hard on perfecting their craft. The Video and Filmmaker's Club continues to be one of the most popular and productive extra learning opportunities in the program, and I can't wait to see their finished products at the end of the summer. We also would like to thank John Tait for stopping in to say hello!

2011 Cabrini Madness Season Recap

A Look Back on the 2011 Cabrini Madness Season!!!

After a very successful 2010 Cabrini Madness debut season, the Cabrini Connections’ program was back at it and geared up to have an even better 2011 season. And a successful season it was!!! With many new and familiar faces, with some new creative ideas and concepts, and that returning competitive edge…the 2011 Cabrini Madness season served to be a great source of program advocacy and financial support for the same GREAT cause…CABRINI CONNECTIONS!!! So take some time and let look back at what was the 2011 Cabrini Madness FUNdraising Tournament

Cabrini Madness Season: February 7th-April 4th, 2011

Number of Team: 13

Number of Participants on Roster: 126

Students (39) Volunteers (46) Staff, Coordinators, Board Members (19) Outside of the Program Members (22)

Cabrini Madness FUNdraising Events:

-Team 5D’s

Game Day Event

-Boom Goes The Dynamite Teen Party/Dance at Cabrini Connections Bowling Night at Timber Lanes

-Cabrini Loyalty Bake Sale & Guessing Contest Happy Hour Event eLoyalty Donation Bin Idea Chicago Office Jean’s Day

-The Dream Team

Birthday Causes on Facebook

-The Free Agents

Happy Hour Event

-The Golden Stars Candy Sales Campaign

-The Green Team

The Wing Thing Happy Hour Basketball Viewing Event & Concert

-Team High5ive

Snack Sales Campaign

Cabrini Madness Promotional Videos: 8 total (possibly 9)

Training Days The Decision

Maybe

Lost In The Woods

Wednesday Night Lights

Cabrini Phoneathon

Bracketology with Tim Doyle

Encouragement Promo

Teams that Advanced to the Elite 8 (+ Play in Team): -Team High 5ive, Change Makers, The Green Team, Boom Goes the Dynamite, The Golden Stars, Cabrini Loyalty, The Dream Team, Cabrini AllStars, and The Kids Are All Bright

Teams that Advanced to the Final 4: -Cabrini Loyalty, Cabrini AllStars, The Dream Team, and The Kids Are All Bright

Championship Round Teams: -The Kids Are All Bright and Cabrini AllStars

2011 Cabrini Madness FUNdraising Tournament Champion: Cabrini AllStars

"The Kids Are All Bright provided some great fireworks down the stretch to make the Cabrini Madness tournament interesting, but it was Tim Minton and the Cabrini AllStars that prevailed in the end. Tim Minton called a timeout, gathered his team together, and provided what would be the game winning speech. He and the Cabrini AllStars rallied to pull out the $6,652 to $4308 victory!!!"

Approximate Number of 2011 Cabrini Madness Donors: Over 600!!!!

Total Amount Raised in the 2011 Cabrini Madness Season: $27,500(+) -more donations from Cabrini Madness has been coming in…

2011 Cabrini Madness Awards: We ended the 2011 Cabrini Madness season with our Annual Award’s ceremony to recognize all that made the 2011 season successful and to honor those that went above and beyond by presenting individuals and teams with some hardware. The names of the awards come from those that won the awards the previous year.

The Minton Rookie of the Year Award: Jason Tennenbaum Rising new star to the Cabrini Madness season

The TEMS Most Improved Team Award: The Kids Are All Bright

Team that started off low in the ranks and made continuous progress throughout the season

The Culliard 6th Man/Woman of the Year: Cabrini Loyalty (Team)

Person (or Team) that was not officially in the Cabrini Connections’ program, but contributed GREATLY to team’s success

The Martin Captain of the Year: Diana Restrepo Captain that led team to great success all season long

The Awesomes’ Most Valuable Event: Boom Goes The Dynamite (Bowling Night) Team’s event that brought in the most financial support

The Grunst Most Valuable Player: Tim Minton Person that brought in the most money that contributed to their team’s overall success

We had an amazing 2011 season of Cabrini Madness, but the support for the GREAT cause of Cabrini Connections' doesn't stop as that season ended. The Cabrini Connections' program is year around, and support for overall program needs to happen all year long as well. So if you missed out on supporting during the Cabrini Madness season and would still like to support the students, volunteers, and staff that make this program what it is...please submit your support here.

Future Leaders - In Development

Below are two videos posted to the Internet this week. The first shows how students are building leadership and fund raising skills by their participation in the Cabrini Madness and other events that help us keep Cabrini Connections available to them and future students. As with other Cabrini Madness videos our students are the actors which helps them develop confidence in themselves. It also shows them how to use video to communicate ideas and motivate people to respond.

Encouragement Promo from Cabrini Connections on Vimeo.

The second is a new video created by Dan Bassill, that shows how Cabrini Connections is a "collective effort" of many people, over many years, to help inner city youth go through school and on into adult lives. In this video Dan shows how the the leaders and past volunteers in Cabrini Connections created the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which is a larger scale collective effort intended to draw needed operating resources to all tutor/mentor programs in the city on a more consistent basis, thus helping Cabrini Connections get more of the resources it needs, too.



This second video is also the result of a collective effort. We first learned about CamStudio from a volunteer based in the UK who used it to create these videos to show her network how one of the T/MC web sites works. She learned about us when George Siemmens, who is in Canada, wrote this blog article about the T/MC on his web site.

In both of these videos we're focusing on raising visibility, connecting leaders from different tutor/mentor programs with each other, and finding donors and philanthropic investors who will provide the capital needed to support the on-going efforts of our students and volunteers. We're also demonstrating how easy it is for any of our students, volunteers, leaders and friends to create videos that help others understand what we're doing so that they are more motivated to use their own time, talent and dollars to help us.

If our teens (and volunteers) practice this form of learning, leadership and communications over many years they will have tools, skills and habits that enable them to mobilize help from many sectors to help them solve any problem they ever face in the future.

Black History Month at Cabrini Connections

Each year in the Cabrini Connections' program we come up with some type of Black History Month project/contest that looks to bring out and/or enhance the skill set of our youth. We provide projects that cause the students to do research, work on their writing skills, test their creativity, and assist them with their public speaking skills. We feel that these skills can and will be helpful not just for the Black History Month project here at Cabrini Connections, but in everyday life in the present and in the future.

This year the project comes from a short documentary that Cabrini Connections' staff members EL Da' Sheon Nix and Bradley Troast observed last year, and we have been brainstorming ways in which we could incorporate the documentary into the Cabrini Connections' program. 'The Twenty-First Century Foundation (21CF) has partnered with actor–director Mario Van Peebles and producer Karen Williams to create BRING YOUR A GAME. The film that will use screenings accompanied by community discussions as a catalyst to transform the lives of urban youth. Using a cinematic style influenced by popular culture and employing innovative technologies, the film details strategies that have improved the lives of Black men and boys. It underscores how essential educational achievement and high school graduation are to survival and success in today’s world.'

Not only is the documentary a powerful tool that many people, both old and young, could use, but the documentary is an audio and visual example of what we try to demonstrate on a weekly basis here at Cabrini Connections. We want all of our youth to understand the pros and cons of the decisions they make, to take advantage of any and all resources made available to them, to network, and to continue to strive for all of the many goals they set even through adverse conditions.

With that being said, we used the documentary as our inspiration for the 2011 Black History Month Project here at Cabrini Connections. The project is titled "Bring Your A Essay." The students will have to first view the documentary and then take the time out to complete a one-page reflective essay. The students have the opportunity to use the documentary to reflect on their life in general, the life of someone they know, or how the documentary compares to the society as a whole. The essays will be due before the last sessions of the month, and we will take time out the very last sessions of the month to allow the participating students to showcase their essay. We will also reward the student that has the winning essay with a $50 cash prize.

The value of the students participating in this project is much more than a cash prize of $50. This project will create an opportunity for the students to observe a great documentary that they can and will hopefully share with others, will provide an opportunity to enhance their writing skills and public speaking skills, and will simply be more information they can use in their everyday lives.

In 2009 Whitney Hemphill, now a senior in the program, took home first place in the Black History Month Project contest by putting together an amazing powerpoint presentation that was directed toward President Barack Obama and his Administration. The project called for students to find creative ways to communicate to President Obama about their lives and the changes they hoped that he could provide in their lives, schools, homes, and community.

Happy Holidays from Cabrini Connections!

Click here to donate.

Year End Dinner. A Great Celebration

Here's the first video showing students, volunteers, parents, alumni and leaders who participated in the June 10,2010 Cabrini Connections year end dinner.


Find more videos like this on Tutor/Mentor Connection


Watch for more updates. Please visit http://www.cabriniconnections.net/donate and find a way to help us continue this work.

Cabrini Connections on Channel 2 News

On Monday evening, Channel 2 News did a story about Cabrini Connections. You can see it on their web site.

The story focuses mostly on the Cabrini Connections side of our work, connecting youth and volunteers with each other, and extra learning and enrichment opportunities, such as arts, video and technology.

Tonight and tomorrow night we're hosting volunteer orientations. Student orientations will be Thursday and Friday. We hope everyone will attend.

Not much was told about the second part of our mission, which is helping programs like this be available to kids in all poverty neighborhoods. That's the role the Tutor/Mentor Connection takes.

The story was filmed a week ago, on 8/30/09, and the message "we're broke" was accurate at that time. We were only able to pay half of the weekly payroll because of lack of cash. However, last Friday, 9/4, we received a $35,000 grant from HSBC North America.

As we start this week, we're not as bad off as we were a week ago, but the main message of this story, and of blog articles I've written in the past few weeks is still true.

Unless we find one or two major benefactors, who will make a multiple year commitment to helping us continue Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, we may not be here in the future.

At the same time, we need to keep the donors who have helped us since 1993 and who are still sending contributions of $25 to $500 to help us. We thank all of you who sent in contributions last week. Please continue to reach out to people you know and ask them to help.

It does take a village to raise our kids. With your help, the Cabrini Connections village wills still be in place throughout the coming year, and in many future years.

Reasons Why We Ask for YOUR Support...

This week the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection organization will be hosting our Annual Jimmy Biggs Memorial Golf Benefit at the Highland Park Country Club. And for the past couple of months we have been sending out information about the event and also for donations and support for the event.

And I want to to thank each and every person who has taken the time out to read the emails, the newsletters, the blog articles, and the mailings about the event, but I want to dig a little deeper and show you why we ask for your support. The golf benefit is a fun-filled event in which people come out and golf, socialize, eat, drink, and bid on silent auction items, but all of those actions contribute to an even bigger cause and that the students, volunteers, and staff that make up the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection organization. The golf benefit in July, Volunteer Recruitment Campaign in August and September, and Martini Madness in October etc are all events that creates opportunities for people to come together to discuss the importance of Cabrini Connections and tutoring/mentoring programs in communities throughout the world.

Please take a few minutes to watch these videos, listen to how our students feel about their mentors and the Cabrini Connections' program, and understand that these are the reason why we ask for YOUR support.

http://www.cabriniconnections.net/video/154-cabrini-connections-20089

http://www.cabriniconnections.net/video/104-cabrini-connections-wednesday-night

http://www.cabriniconnections.net/video/103-thursday-night-from-mentees-to-mentors

Will you answer the call?

The Upcoming 2009 Year End Dinner

Thursday June 4th, the Cabrini Connections' program will be hosting our annual Year End Dinner event! This is an event that takes place at the end of every tutoring/mentoring year that brings together students, alumni, potential students, mentors, staff and donors together and their guests, for an evening filled with food, entertainment and celebration of another great year at Cabrini Connections. Courtland Madock, who was the Volunteer in the Spotlight during the last week of our official tutoring/mentoring sessions, along with her Year-End Dinner Committee have put together what will we hope will be a truly memorable night and will provide the momentum needed for the summer and a successful 2009-2010 year!

The Year End Dinner is an event for those are, have, or would like to be a part of the program, and is a great opportunity to meet many of the people who make this program what it is. The 2008 Year End Dinner truly great and I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite program events of the year! The event is not only filled with the people who make the program possible, but the event is filled with so much emotion it really lets you know how much this program means to so many people. And as the Administrative Coordinator of the program it reassures me that we are making a difference in the lives of those who are connected to the program.

And this year's event should be as fun and as powerful as the previous ones. There will be students serving as MCs, there will be parents speaking, volunteers speaking, staff speaking, alumni speaking, entertainment from the youth, and much much more that the 2009 Year End dinner!!! Another special treat is our Youth Leadership Council will premiere a short documentary about the history of Cabrini Connections, shot with the assistance of professional videographers Matt Lauterbach and Dinesh Sabu. The theme of this year's dinner and the 2009-2010 tutoring/mentoring year is "Hope, Build, Believe, and Achieve."

If you would like to be a part of what will should be a GREAT night, you can easily RSVP online here, so please join us. The dinner will be taking place at the Cornerstone Academy banquet facility, which is located at 1111 N Wells. Dinner will last from 5:30-8 and those over 21 will continue the night at Spoon, located across the street at 1240 N Wells St. Hope to see you there!

For More information about the Year End Dinner visit the website.

*pictures from the 2008 event*

Cabrini Green: Where the Journey Began

Sport's fan...who hasn't watched an ESPN special or a documentary on the 'journey' of an NFL player and became an ever bigger fan or supporter of that player, that team, or the NFL in general. Nearly every one of those types of specials goes back to the places where the NFL player was born and raised, and viewers get a glimpse of the hardships that the player and his family faced and overcame as they continued on their road to success. Some of the hardships that the players face are growing up in sub-par school systems, broken homes, single family households, and some of the worst neighborhoods in the country. And when people see how these players rose above the adversity and eventually became professionals in the National Football League, you fall in love with the player...and the story!

Several of our Cabrini Connections' players who have followed a similar journey to many of the NFL players, have put their time, talents, and energy into documenting the place where their story begins. This place is also very similar, and by many, was and still is, considered one the most notorious housing projects in the country. This place is where many of our players were born and raised is the Cabrini Green Housing Projects!

This ESPN-like special -- which is very similar to an Outside the Lines segment -- was put together by several players (LaFaye Garth, Jonathan Summers, Kevin Stanfield, Kenneth Chatman) and the IYP position's coach (Rebecca Parrish). The title of this documentary is "Cabrini Green, This is What I Know." This 28 minute long video provides the fans a look at the place in which many of our players call home. By viewing this video the fans get a better understanding of some of the hardships that are players face on a daily basis, and after viewing this video you will become and even bigger fan of the Cabrini Connections' players and their journey!

Due to the great work that the players put into putting this documentary together, the players won the "Strongest Voice" award at the Raw Voices ; Teens In the Media Arts Festival last weekend for their documentary. See the movie trailer here And purchase the full video for $15 here .

Please support these amazing players by purchasing the video or by joining other true fans of Cabrini Connections in the Fan's Lounge.

Cabrini Video wins award!

The Cabrini Connections video documentary, Cabrini Green, This is What I know: Our Lives, Our Truths, Our Stories, won the "Strongest Voice" award at the Raw Voices: Teens In the Media Arts festival this weekend!

Three of the students who worked on this project from 2006 until now, Kenneth, Jonathan, Kevin, along with Rebecca Parrish, the volunteer who led the project for the final two years, were there to accept the award.

Here is a link to more information about the Raw Voices program. Here is more information on Cabrini Connections Arts and Video Festival.

New Video tells Cabrini Connections' Story

Here's a link to a video posted on YouTube that was done by a Northwestern University graduate student this fall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW2cLuegKlE

Please pass this on to other viewers through your Facebook, My Space and LinkedIn networks so more people learn about our work and give us their support.

If you know of people working with media, video, communications, etc. who would want to create videos like this, and teach kids to do this, we're looking for volunteers to help re-launch our video group. Contact Dan or El Da'Sheon if you know of interested people.

Edgewood College 2008 Experience now on YouTube

One of our volunteers, Haminiaina Ratovoarivony, has created a video documentary of the July 2008 visit of Edgewood College graduate students at Cabrini Connections.

Haminiaina is from Madagascar, where he is teaching cinema and digital video for youth. At Cabrini Connections he is working with our library of digital video, created over the past 10 years, to create new videos that show the work we're doing.

We're recruiting other volunteers who will take this role, and hope that as a community of Cabrini Connections video volunteers forms, it will begin to attract our teens, which will re-energize the Innervisions Youth Production club which was started in 1995.

If you're a current or former student or volunteer and want to be part of this group, or work in the Chicago area and want to join us for the first time, email tutormentor2@earthlink.net so we can help you get involved.

CC Volunteer Interviewed by BNN

Roman Schuster was interviewed on May 16 by BNN, the Canadian version of CNN. You can view the interview here.

Arts & Video Festival, 2008

More than 100 people attended the 2008 Arts & Video Festival held at the Palette and Chisel, 1012 N. Dearborn Chicago IL 60610 on Friday, Feb. 8. More than 40 pieces of art created by Cabrini Connections' students and donated by arts volunteers were shown and sold. Click here to meet the student artists and learn more about the art club.



The Art Club and the Video Group are part of the extra learning and enrichment offered to students who participate regularly in the one-on-one tutor/mentor sessions held every Wednesday and Thursday during the school year. While volunteers help organize the weekly tutor/mentor session, different volunteers organize and lead the arts and video and technology groups, which usually meet on a Monday or Tuesday afternoon or evening.



In addition to the showing of student art, this was the world premier of the video documentary, Cabrini Green:Times of CHAnge, that Cabrini Connections teens and volunteers have been working on since 2005. The documentary tells the story of gentrification in Cabrini Green and gives students a chance to learn team skills, and film creation and communications skills, while working on a long-term project like this. In the photo at the right, one of the students working on the project, Kenneth C., was showing his enthusiasm and telling me how he was so proud of being part of the project and how he intended to show it to people where he works.



Two other students who worked on this project, Kevin S. and Jonathan S., were asked questions by the audience. One was what do you intended to do with this? Kevin answered, "Show it to the world."

You can still see the art if you go to the Palette and Chisel, 1012 N. Dearborn Chicago IL 60610, this weekend. And you can order copies of the video ($20 each, which includes mailing/$10 if you pick up copies at Cabrini Connections). Just email tutormentor2@earthlink.net.

These projects are organized by volunteers, but made possible because donors provide money for equipment, space, and the staff who support the Cabrini Connections year-round schedule of activities. If you'd like to volunteer with IYP, Arts or Tech clubs, or make a donation, just contact us at tutormentor2@earthlink.net or call 312-492-9614.

Congratulations to the arts and video club volunteers who did all of the work in organizing the festival, and who work with the students each week to help them have brighter futures.

New Video on Google: The Potion

One of the more creative videos produced by our Innervision Youth Productions program was titled The Potion. It's star was Tramaine Montel Ford, who since then has graduated from Syracruse University (2006) and began an acting career in New York City. In spring 2007 he had a dancing role in the Hairspray Movie. On h is blog he shows that he got acting start with the Cabrini Connections video project.

We've never had funds for consistent year-to-year staffing of the video program, so much of the work has been organized by volunteers. Jimmy Biggs, a former student, was a driving force in IYP and was taking over as leader in 2000, when he died suddendly from Diabetes. View Jimmy's video "The Real Cabrini" and others at http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=cabrini+connections

Rebecca Parrish has been leading IYP for the past year, as a volunteer. We thank her for creating a digital archive of the past videos and putting them on the Internet.

Since we're in the movie business, we need a producer, who would provide $25,000 to $40,000 per year for a part time or full time leader of the video/arts/technology programs at Cabrini Connections. Because of YouTube and Google Videos, the work that kids and volunteers do can now be distributed throughout the world. This gives much more visibility to a sponsor/financier.

If you know of someone who'd make a multi year commitment to this role, please show them the videos and introduce them to us.

New Cabrini Connections Video on Internet

Rebecca Parrish has created a new video about Cabrini Connections that is intended to help us recruit volunteers and donors.

You can view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQWwkgRjfO0

I encourage you to take a look, and email this to friends and family to show what we are doing to help kids and how they can help us as volunteers and donors.

Thank you Rebecca and Cabrini Connections students for creating this!!

Dan Bassill
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection

Cabrini Connections Videos on-line

Since 1996 teens and volunteers from Cabrini Connections have been creating short videos as part of an annual learning and skill development activity. Many of these videos can now be viewed on line at http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=cabrini+connections

These videos include many testimonials about how Cabrini Connections is important to these teens. If you are watching them and want to volunteer to help current teens create similar videos, or are willing to be a sponsor to help provide the money needed to pay for space, equipment and staff, email tutormentor2@earthlink.net and introduce yourself.

Alumni Update: Tramaine Ford

Tramaine was a student at Cabrini Connections from 1995 to 2000. He sends the following message:

I hope all is well. Wish I was able to tell you sooner, but I was recently in Chicago. I flew out there to be on The Oprah Show. I was very lucky to perform with the cast of Hairspray The Movie on Oprah live this past Wednesday May 16th. It was an amazing experience and a dream come true. I was only in town for three days and I was very busy and didnt get to tell everyone that I would have liked to tell so they could tune in. However Im sure the show will re-air. Since I didn't have the opportunity to tell her, I plan on writing Oprah a letter of thanks.