CHOICES Champion

CHOICES NEWS:

On May 5, 2009 President Obama announced that he would ask Congress in the FY2010 budget to provide $50 million in seed capital for his Social Innovation Fund. The Fund, which will be administered by the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, will identify the most promising, results-oriented non-profit programs and expand their reach throughout the country. The intent of the fund is finding and scaling the best social innovations; partnering with those who are leading change in their communities; and creating a policy environment for all these innovations to thrive. The Social Innovation Fund will build a "pipeline" of programs that have demonstrated results and are ready to spread across the country to meet community needs.

Read the White House press release on this announcement!

CHOICES MANAGEMENT TIP OF THE MONTH

Plan Your End of Year CHOICES Champion Session

Since many of you have finished or nearly finished your CHOICES presentations for the current academic year, now is the time to plan your end of school year event for your Presenters , their managers and school staff. We call it the CHOICES Champion Session.

When your Presenters return from their classroom presentations, you will be amazed at the excitement and enthusiasm they bring back with them. They’ll return to work wanting to share their experiences with co-workers and other Presenters. Even after “challenging” presentations, tenacious Presenters want to go back and make it better next time. Many Presenters will say that they are getting even more from the experience than the students.

This is an opportunity to be seized as your program winds up for the year. Schedule and invite all Presenters, and ideally their managers, to attend a CHOICES Champion Session to share their experiences. Allow about 45 minutes for Presenters to share their experiences. Then, use another 45 minutes to have refreshments, while a participating teacher, counselor, or principal shares about the impact of CHOICES on their students and thanks the Presenters for their time and commitment.

Breakfast is a great time to hold these sessions. A morning session can be quite lively, with special awards for the most presentations, certificates of appreciation signed by CEO’s and sharing of comments from student evaluations as Presenters collect their awards. Remember that as a licensed CHOICES program site you can use the CHOICES logo to make pens, coffee mugs or other items with which to thank your presenters. If you would like additional ideas bout CHOICES Champion Sessions, please contact us at info@choices.org.

CHOICES FIELD REPORT

Marine Corps Helps Optimist Club Reach More Teens with CHOICES

Last year one of our Optimist Club leaders mentioned CHOICES to the Executive Officer for Marine Aviation Training Support Group-21, a tenent command on board Naval Air Station, Pensacola. Since they were already doing some other community outreach work with us, he was interested to participate. We trained several young Marine non-commissioned officers to become CHOICES presenters. They were naturals and easily won over the classes.

The OCS recently moved to Rhode Island so we lost this cadre of young Navy Officer Candidates, but the Marine Corps maintains a very large training presence in the greater Pensacola area as they train more than 7,000 Marines annually for follow-on service in the operational forces. When I asked for help with CHOICES this year, the Colonel said he already had volunteers ready to go. The selected three female Marines observed and assisted at the first school and then presented at the second school.

I was a bit concerned because they were only 22 years old, and wondered how the teachers would accept them, but they all were accepting and pleased, and thought the young women did a great job. And the kids related to the young Marines extremely well. Putting on two schools is a bit much for our small club. We could not do it without the help of the Marine Corps.

John Berti, Program Chairman | Optimist Club of Gulf Breeze, FL