Keeping this blog as archive

 I've not posted on this blog since early 2011 when I left the organization.  It's not been  updated by those who took the lead after me.  

I created Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, offering help for teens in the Cabrini Green area of Chicago, while also working to help similar programs grow in all high poverty areas of the city.  

In 2011 I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to continue the Tutor/Mentor Connection and continue to lead that in 2020.   

Because I encourage youth tutor, mentor and learning programs to use blogs to share what they do, and what their challenges are, I continue to point to this blog, as an example.  Google is taking unused sites offline, so in order to try to keep this available, I'm posting this today. Please use it as an example of what's possible.

July 2023 update - Google has announced that sites not used in 2  years will be deleted. To keep this site available I'm adding this notice.

 

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.

See more videos and photos from Dinner

Visit Bradley Troast's blog and see videos and more photos from the year end dinner.

Visit the Cabrini Fund Raising Blog and our Donor page to find ways that you can help this program get the dollars needed to operate for the next 12 months.

Savon's Reflection: The Golf Benefit

The Golf Benefit
by Savon Clark Mentee - Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 10:25 AM

July 16, 2009 was an experience for me. On this day Cabrini Connections held its 14th annual Golf benefit which was a great day overall. The weather was great, record breaking attendance and golfing!! When you put that with great food, you could not ask for much more!! We even had NFL players (Nick Roach & Austin King) come to the benefit. I got the chance to chat with Nick for a bit a he gave me a sneak peek and insiders to the NFL. We got a great speech from Eboni Rivera, a recent graduate from the program. Of course this would not have been possible thanks to all of Cabrini Connections' supporters, the Highland Golf Club, and The Cabrini Connections' Staff.

Meet interns. Visit NU Ning group

While we share our stories through the blog articles you can read here, the Internet has many places where people meet. Thus, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, is in many more places than 800 W. Huron, or on this blog page.

Visit the NU TutorMentor group and see how we're creating a network of Northwestern University students, faculty and alumni. Read about interns here and here.

Career Week Activities

During Spring Break several students visited companies where volunteers work. Read about this in Chris Warren's Blog.

Parent Leadership in Education Blog Passes on T/MC message

I encourage you to read this article in the Parent Leadership in Education blog. It illustrates how one writer is able to connect people in one network with ideas in other networks. I met the writer of this blog in a LinkedIn group forum where we've been sharing ideas with others.

As more and more of us use blog exchanges to expand our network and focus it on common goals, we build a greater army of support for Cabrini Connections and similar tutor/mentor programs which we could not reach on our own.

Read more on the Tutor/Mentor Blog that I write.

Dan Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection

Teamwork - Team Blogs

While El Da'Sheon writes most of the articles for the Cabrini Blog, he's not the only person telling the story of what happens at Cabrini Connections each week. 

Chris Warren, our public interest fellow from Northwestern interviews one student and one volunteer each week, and writes stories about them. He also writes about some of our extra activities, such as the college and career group. In addition, he writes about our larger strategies, such as trying to partner with health care organizations. 

Vjeko Hlede is our eLearning and Technology Coordinator. He is responsible for keeping all of the technology in operation, and for setting up new web platforms such as the Cabrini Connections and Tutor/Mentor Institute blogs. One strategy he's focusing on is the Cool Cash program, intended to encourage kids and volunteers to build habits of using the resources on the T/MC site. 

We all write articles for the CabriniFund Raising blog, and we hope you'll all visit there to learn how to help us raise money for this work. 

In addition, Dan Bassill, Nicole White and Mike Trakan are writing articles that focus on ways business and community leaders can support all tutor/mentor programs in the city on a more consistent basis. 

We hope you'll all get to know our team, and contribute your own ideas in forums like our Ning page, or in Facebook or on Linked in. It takes a village to help kids grow up and our team has many people taking important roles.

Supporters of Cabrini Connections..."Be APART of Barack's Change!"

History will be made this month, on January 20th to be exact, with the eyes of the world focused on Washington DC as Barack Obama officially becomes the first minority President!!! This is a true historic event, so monumental that there will be millions of people not only trying to get the attention of the new administration, but millions of people are just want to be apart of it all. So how can the Cabrini Connections' family not only be apart of this event, but be apart of the CHANGE…It’s pretty simple!

Express your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and even your dreams of change in the form of blog articles! The Cabrini Connections’ Team is encouraging the entire Cabrini Connection network to take part in being APART of this change by constructing blog articles in all of the various communication and media avenues out there (newspapers, tv, radio, myspace, facebook, etc…). As apart of this change we want you all to think about how the Obama Administration can help you, your business, your organization, and your community etc…to help not just the Cabrini Connections' kids, but all kids. Because the kids are OUR future and with this ‘new’ idea of change, why not try make all take part in the change for all of OUR futures.

Our vision is that we get past, current, and future Cabrini Connections' staff, students, and volunteers joining this wave, collectively we raise enough attention and awareness during the inauguration celebration and all of the policy forums to what WE have to say about how our new public and private leaders help US do OUR work!!!

This is how this is going to work…during the week of the inauguration EVERYBODY should write your article and not only share your article with the public, but encourage people in your network to do the same! Or you can post your blog link (and article) on our Ning page (http://nututormentor.ning.com/?xgsi=1).

Like the President/CEO of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection (Mr. Dan Bassill) says, "I can't be in DC and don't want to be one of a hundred, or a thousand faces in a crowd in Chicago. Yet I want people to hear my message, reflect on it, and then act on it. You do too, don't you! So write a blog article that connects public policy, private sector involvement and the work you do to help kids in poverty have a ladder of support that makes it possible for more of them to be a leader in business, education and government in the future."

I am asking all of you to join the WAVE by writing your blogs and sharing them with the world!

CHANGE is in YOUR hands!!!

Read student and volunteer profiles

I hope that as you visit this blog, you'll also visit the blogs listed on the right side of these pages. They are written by other staff and volunteers and expand the perspectives of what Cabrini Connections is trying to do and who is involved.

In particular, I encourage you to read the student and volunteer profiles that Chris Warren is writing each week, as well as his discussion of student participation and leadership.

If you read Nicole's blog you'll learn more about the Tutor/Mentor Connection part of this organization, and how what we do here is an example for programs all over the country!

Finally, if you read blogs by Cassina and Dan you'll learn about fund raising and about actions leaders can take to help programs like Cabrini Connections serve kids in Cabrini Green and other high poverty neighborhoods.

These change every week, so check in often.