Better(MEN)t- Fall 2020

How might we make the topic of "how to be a man" relevant, easy to approach, and community driven?

Better[MEN]t was back again this year, with the same mission of exploring what it means to be a young man in this world today. The team planned to tackle big issues such as gender roles and stereotypes, modeling vulnerability, and encouraging self-reflection. Team members started with having conversations about what it means to be a man in today’s society as well as hosting empathy interviews with men in their community.

After going through their empathy work, they decided to focus their efforts on creating a project working with junior high boys to help with establishing identity and healthy communication patterns. The team created a three-day camp for junior high boys to complete their Project Good experience. The camp featured numerous community-building activities, including video games, nerf wars, and capture the flag. Additionally, camp guides encouraged vulnerability among the participants by asking them to reconsider male stereotypes and what it means to be a man.

Fast Facts

Year(s): Fall 2020 - Summer 2021

Focus: Equipping young men for emotionally mature futures

Recipients: Young junior high-aged boys from our community

Community partner: N/A

Number of recipients: 13

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 7

Number of weeks of planning: 30

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: 5

How many hours it took to implement: 12

Sad Muffins- Fall 2020

How might we use baked goods to educate the young people about mental health and encourage them to express their emotions?

Back by popular demand, Sad Muffins started its second year as a Project Good program with the objective of learning more about mental health. They hosted meetings weekly, alternating between baking new desserts together over zoom, and meeting with guest speakers to have conversations surrounding mental health. Guest speakers included Blythe Forman from Cakes by Blythe, Emmeli Mayo from Emmeli's Cakes, and Val from Depressed Cake Shop. 

The Sad Muffin team’s final implementation included joining forces with the team leading Love of Learning (LOL, a supplemental after school tutoring/reading program that paired high school students and elementary students). They led an “Emotions and Emojis” cookie decorating activity. The Sad Muffins started by having a conversation about emotions with LOL participants, then decorated cookies with icing to resemble an emoji of the participants choosing that represented how they felt that day. The participants then presented their cookie to the group and explained why they chose the emoji they did.

Sad Muffins also implemented at the end of May by delivering baked goodies with positive notes and a list of community resources to neighbors in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month.

Fast Facts

Year(s): Fall 2020 - Spring 2021

Focus: Mental and emotional health

Recipients: Love of Learning’s elementary-aged participants

Community partner: Project Good’s Love of Learning

Number of recipients: 20

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 15

Number of weeks of planning: 20

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: 2

How many hours it took to implement: 2

Operation Salsa- Fall 2020

How might we address food insecurity by providing fresh food to those in need in our community?

Operation Salsa started as a project with the intention of tackling local food insecurity issues by planting a new garden for our community, participating in small-scale agriculture, and making meals from their harvest for those in need. The team started meetings by participating in four different empathy experiences: visiting and working at New Roots Garden,  Ohana Farm visit, Seeds of Change farm visit, and Fiddler’s Green Farm visit. 

In the beginning, Operation Salsa placed their focus on restoring soil health to the New Roots garden plot on Cole Rd. This included cutting down weeds, removing a weed barrier, sourcing horse manure (for free delivered via trailer weekly), building a compost container out of reused pallets, and spreading fall cover crop seed on the garden. The team also coordinated gleaning excess apples from a One Stone family to share with the Rolling Tomato, an organization fighting food waste by getting extra produce to shelters and people in need. Apples went to the staff and Club members at the Boys and Girls Club and the Womens and Children’s Alliance. 

In the spring, Operation Salsa’s main focus was planning for spring planting. This included training and learning about issues farmworkers face. They had a panel interview and discussion with Christina Stucker-Gassi and Samantha Guerreo, two advocates for farmworkers and migrant laborers in Idaho. They also had a seed prepping and a seed education workshop run by Ben Trieu, who is a volunteer coach for this team, in order to start preparing seeds for the garden. By the end of the school year, Operation Salsa had built garden rows and planted starter plants in the area.

Fast Facts

Year(s): Fall 2020 - Summer 2021

Focus: Food accessibility and sustainable gardening practices 

Community partner: Treasure Valley Community Garden Cooperative; St Stephens Episcopal Church; Boise Urban Garden School; Boise Kitchen Collective 

Number of recipients: 50

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 20

Number of weeks of planning: 30

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: ongoing project

How many hours it took to implement: ongoing project

FLIP- Fall 2020

How might we help children of CATCH families in making their house THEIR home?

FLIP started its fourth year as a One Stone project, but pivoted to a new way of tackling the same HMW statement: “How might we help children of CATCH families in making their house THEIR home?” While the team continued their empathy work by getting to know each family personally, they decided to focus on building or renovating dressers (identified by community partners as a main need) in order to personalize each room.

The team began by having a dresser drive to collect dressers that were ready to renovate. After receiving two dressers in good shape that were ready to be personalized to recipients’ needs. Coach Adan Callsen and student Bebe Blue began preparing to turn initial ideas from the team into CNC ready fabrication plans. Students also interviewed two recipient families to see how many dressers each household would be needing and to learn more about the recipients’ needs and personalities. The West family would need two dressers (three young children with a baby on the way), and the Judge family would need two dressers (two young girls). 

The final product included completing four dressers for two different families, and supplying bedding to one of the families who desperately needed it.

Fast Facts

Year(s): Fall 2020/Spring 2021

Focus: Families experiencing homelessness

Recipients: Two CATCH families

Community partner: CATCH

Number of recipients: ~10

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 8-10

Number of weeks of planning: 15-20

Everyone's an Athlete- Fall 2020

How might we encourage sportsmanship and lifelong movement for 5-12 year olds with physical and intellectual disabilities?

In the Fall of 2020, the Everyone’s an Athlete team created a 3 week yoga experience in partnership with Game Changers Idaho for their Kinder-2nd grade athletes. Each session included both learning different yoga techniques, as well as doing fun games to help the kids work on mobility and balance.

The high school students worked with different yoga therapists in Boise to learn more about how to teach yoga to kids with mental and physical disabilities. After learning more about this, they created their own yoga flows to do with the kids that could be done by multiple different age groups. They also wanted to make sure the kids had time to connect with each other in high energy activities so the team planned times for the kids to play capture the flag together.

Fast Facts

Year(s): Fall 2020 - Summer 2021

Focus: Youth with physical and intellectual disabilities

Recipients: K-2nd 

Community partner: Game Changers

Number of recipients: 15-20

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 13

Number of weeks of planning: 10

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: 10

How many hours it took to implement: 10

Love of Learning- Fall 2020

How might we keep a love of learning alive in elementary school students during the current virtual learning and limited activity realities associated with the COVID pandemic?

Love of Learning was created as a free mentorship program designed to support young students in their educational and social-emotional growth during the unique challenges brought on by COVID-19. To help students safely engage with others while keeping the flame of curiosity alive, elementary students (K-6th) were paired with a high school student “guide” once a week after school for in-person, hands-on activities (science experiments, art projects and more), healthy snack, movement time, and personalized learning support. 

““As a single mom, I went for a walk every time I dropped my child off. It provided me with a time to get exercise and just decompress.””

— A Parent

Once a week after school guides and buddies would pair up to do different activities like candy catapult building, stomp rockets, crafting, and chalk drawing. Guides also helped buddies with personalized learning support which looked like supporting students that came with homework. Guides and their buddies were also able to play educational games, use the provided practice materials, and review parent suggestions with their buddy to help make goals and plans on how they could get their school work done during the day. 

An implementation of this was done at the Boys and Girls Club in Boise as well as JUMP. While the implementation done at JUMP was held after school, the one for the Boys and Girls Club was held during Lab51 hours. Lab51 students were taken over to the club four days a week to work with kids during the school day and help them with classes and homework.

““It was a positive experience and my kids would like to go back.””

— A Parent

Fast Facts

Year(s): Fall 2020 - Spring 2021

Focus: Tutoring and literacy opportunities

Recipients: Love of Learning’s elementary-aged participants

Community partner: JUMP

Number of recipients: 30

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 15

Number of weeks of planning: 30

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: 5

How many hours it took to implement: 50

Data:

• 100% of parents agreed that Love of Learning engaged their child’s curiosity and support their development.

• 100% of parents said their child enjoyed spending time with their buddy 

• 100% of parents said they would recommend Love of Learning to another family

Venture Camp- Summer 2020

How might we explore and practice social entrepreneurship with 7th and 8th graders through a fun summer experience?

Venture camp is a three day camp for 7th and 8th graders on learning what entrepreneurship is and teaching new skills to grow as an entrepreneur. The second implementation of Venture camp took place this year with a total of 13 campers and 5 guides. Participants met with local entrepreneurs from various businesses such as Trailhead, Thistle and Pine Creative, and Giant Pineapple Shaved Ice and were able to ask questions and bounce ideas off of them. 

Campers and their buddies were then broken up into four groups based on their interest in current issues plaguing our world, then created a product and pitched it to a panel of “sharks.” Favorite activities included designing a logo, creating a one sheet, and learning how to tie a tie.

In the end, a group called Frank & Styles won the pitch competition with a shirt designed to grow as the customer does, to maximize the lifetime of clothes and minimize waste.

Fast Facts Sheet

Year(s): Summer 2020

Focus: Entrepreneurship 

Recipients: 7th and 8th

Community partner: trailhead, thistle and pine creative, giant pineapple shaved ice

Number of recipients: 13

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 5 guides

Number of weeks of planning: 10

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: 20

How many hours it took to implement: 18

Quotes:

From a high school guide, “I learned how to be a better group leader and problem solver, these skills will definitely be applied to me and my life.”

Open Book Adventures- Summer 2020

How might we improve literacy skills in first and second graders?

Open Book Adventures (OBA) is One Stone’s longest-running Project Good program. First and second graders around the Treasure Valley come to One Stone to partner one-on-one with high school students, “Adventure Guides”, for three days of building connections and diving into activities that encourage a love of learning. Young buddies gain a fun and caring near-peer mentor while high school students expand their skills in leadership, problem-solving, communication, and empathy.

OBA successfully implemented another year of summer camp with 26 campers and 26 high school guides. For health and safety during COVID-19, camp took place outdoors at Kristin Armstrong Park. Many campers brought their own supplies to reduce the sharing of materials and visually represented their personal space with a blanket or towel to sit on.

In addition to reading and writing activities, campers took a walk to MK Nature Center, crafted socks to participate in puppet theater, listened to The BFG by Roald Dahl during group story time, and had a stomp rocket contest. Feedback from parents, guides, and buddies was very positive, and they all indicated that One Stone had done a great job following safety protocols.

Fast Facts Sheet

Year(s): Summer 2020

Focus: Literacy in 1st and 2nd graders

Recipients: 1st and 2nd graders

Community partner: sponsored by Whittenberger Foundation

Number of recipients: 26

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 6 (1 in school, 4 out of school, one OS grad)

Number of weeks of planning: 4

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: 5

How many hours it took to implement: 20

Quotes:

From an OBA parent, “My daughter has always loved reading and writing, but I think having a high school student as a partner helped her see that "cool" kids do it, too, not just teachers and parents.”

From another parent, “My daughter’s favorite part was having a buddy. After the last day of camp, she came home and napped, and when she woke up was just in tears that she wouldn't have another day of camp with her guide. So impactful to have those relationships and one-on-one time, however brief. Please pass along our thanks to her guide.” 

From a high school Adventure Guide, “I learned that being a leader is hard work but the work is worth the reward of seeing how happy we made the kids and that we gave them an experience they could never forget.”