Office Update

Posted by Heidi on August 5, 2008 at 03:35 PM
General Miscellaneous

Three things that I love about my job, today:

1. Dixie (our outgoing Program Director) has been training Elizabeth (our new Program Director) in the ways of the BOM office and her new job. That means Dixie has, among other things, been going over who’s who in our partner networks. Often this sounds like “At the Parks, we work with ____. She loves us. Well, everyone loves us, but she loves us most” and “at CISC our newest friend is ____, but if you can’t get her on the phone, you can talk to ____—it’s not really her job, but she would do anything for us and our program.”

2. We got a letter in the mail from Senator Obama’s senate office congratulating us on our grant from the NEA. It is surely a form letter, but it is delightful to hear that our work is “a source of pride, and a wellspring of hope for the people of Illinois.”

3. In sorting through files on my desk I found the following quote from a student at the Bridge School: ““You were totally awesome, terrific, fabulous, fantastic, exciting and funny!... and that was totally the best school day in my whole big giant life.  Thanks, that really made me really happy.”
and from the author of “Dear Raheel” (currently being performed in “That’s Weird, Grandma”): “My whole class misses you, you gave us the courage to write and imagine what we can do.”

They know us so well

Posted by Jason on July 29, 2008 at 03:17 PM
Miscellaneous

This isn’t as good as the comics produced by our Loyola Park kids (i.e. Attack of the Mashed Potatoes), but I liked it anyhow.  Our logo has come to life…

Contribute to knowledge of the field!

Posted by Heidi on July 11, 2008 at 04:48 PM
Miscellaneous

Kellogg School of Management is conducting a study of how and why people participate in the arts. We believe the results of this study will help organizations like BOM understand their audiences better.

If you have 15 minutes to take a survey for the arts, please click here

If you are skeptical, I’ve included more information below. Also, everyone who takes the survey has a chance to win $100 in PlayMoney (that’s 10 performances of TWG!!!)

More information after the jump!

Read more»

Ten years with Communities in Schools

Posted by Heidi on May 13, 2008 at 11:03 AM
School Workshops Miscellaneous

This morning BOM’s Program Director, Dixie Uffelman, and I attended Communities in Schools of Chicago‘s annual Partner Recognition Breakfast. CISC is a great organization that helps match under-served community schools with community organizations like ours that can fill critical unmet needs—everything from providing health screenings to anger management and so on. This year CISC honored us as a ten-year agency partner by giving us a lovely plaque.

That’s Dixie, showing it off.

The event was at US Cellular Field, which is always exciting. Dixie claims that she’s spent more time at the Cell as a guest of CISC then as a patron of the White Sox.

That aside, it was really great to see other partner organizations and some of the school principals and site coordinators and hear about the other ten year partners. Our friends at CISC were extremely nice (as always) and had a giant poster board depicting one of our school residencies. It’s always exciting to be in an environment where everyone in the room is committed to “meeting unmet needs” and serving the schools and communities. CISC got to thank us this morning, but I’d like to thank them—their help and guidance allows us to serve the schools that can most benefit from our specific programs and over ten years has provided us with many fruitful partnerships. We rely on their network to make sure that we can serve the most appropriate communities and help us make the first crucial contacts with new school partners. Here’s looking forward to another ten years of collaboration.

Not unlike what we do

Posted by Rachel on May 9, 2008 at 01:00 PM
Miscellaneous

. . . but in a different medium. I’ve recently come across a couple of photographers with series that adapt the brain children of, well, children.

Note: These links will take you away from the Barrel of Monkeys website. The immediate links contain kid-friendly images, but these are artists’ websites, not designed specifically for children. Explore with care.

Check out Jan Von Holleben’s Dreams of Flying series, based on children’s dreams. I love that on his site, he features a series of photos taken by kids, inspired by their own dreams.

And artist Yeondoo Jung’s Wonderland series adapts children’s drawings to photography.