New Music!

The 808 Music Crew is getting better and better, and they recently finished three entire songs! Check out the songs from Desi, Kobe, Abdulai, Mohamed, and Ibrahim below. Great job, guys! Keep the music coming!

Flowers blooming in summer!

Last week in the Activity Room, the kids made a pretty cool craft: tissue paper flowers!

Molly helped the kids choose their colors, scrunch up the tissue paper, and put them all together into a very cool creation.

Check out some pictures of the activity below!

808 visits TD Garden!

The kids and teens of 808-812 were fortunate enough to be invited to the Salvation Army's "back to school" event at TD Garden in Boston last week. The kids got to shoot baskets on the Celtics' hoops, shoot into the Bruins' nets, take pictures with championship banners, and more.

At the end of the event, the kids each received a brand new backpack filled with school supplies. The kids and teens had a great time. Check out some pictures from the event below!

The World premiere Of 808 Voices

808 Voices is a video about how 808 has come to be and how it has grown over the years. This video shows how our community has excelled over the years and how we maintain these strong relationship that makes our community a community.

Cooking Can Be Healthy!

On Wednesday August 14 their was a cooking class and in that class they were trying to inspire people to eat and cook healthy and that it's not that hard to do. They ending up making nutrient bars and they were filled with nuts which are very healthy, the nutrient bars had granola and Gram crackers in them. At the end they ended up being really good and they were also very healthy.

New Video: 808-812 Highlights!

As part of the upcoming 808 Movie Night, we made a new video today highlighting the past decade-plus of memories and events shared by J. Ryan Solutions Inc. and 808-812 Memorial Drive Youth Activities. Check out the video below to see 808-812, past and present!

A product of our hard musical work!

Last night at National Night Out marked a big step for our music program: the release of our first mixtape!

A stack of new CDs, waiting to be given out!

The kids have been hard at work at their music for weeks now, and we felt that we finally had enough material to release our own CD. The CD features seven songs by a variety of youth artists. Some are raps, some are just beats, but all of them are really well done.
We hope to continue to produce musical products like this in the future.

To hear the music online, visit our Soundcloud page!

If you'd like a physical copy of the CD (it'll play on any computer and in most newer car stereos), come to the Computer Learning Center and pick one up!

National Night Out 2013!

Last night was Cambridge's annual National Night Out celebration at Riverside Press Park, and the 808-812 community came out in full force to celebrate the night and their neighborhood with friends.

The night featured food, fun, games, the presentation of scholarships, and performances by local rap artists. Everyone had a great time!

Below is a slideshow featuring pictures and video from this year's NNO.

Crafting Away!

Video games are fun, but sometimes old fashioned crafting is the best way to spend a summer day. Here are Allison and Ayoub hard at work on some popsicle stick artwork.

A Fantastic Youth Photo

Now that we've had some youth take pictures with the Nikon camera, we're going to start showing some of them off.

We're going to select pictures taken by the youth and show them on the blog to illustrate how good the youth are getting at using the cameras.

This week's picture comes from Feldano:

New background!

Recently, we've had some kids here at 808-812 get into photography, and they're exploring the different things the camera can do.

One teenager recently went out and took some pictures with CLC instructor help, and he got some great shots. His pictures were so nice that we made one of them the background on all of the CLC's computers!

The picture can be seen at the end of this post. We hope to encourage more kids to take an interest in the camera, and will try to give each child or teen a chance at being the background of the computers.

Sports Club returns!

The return of nice weather brought about another return: that of the 808 Sports Club!

We went outside recently to play a variety of games, including basketball, soccer, and football. It's great to see the kids get outside and get moving, and they had a blast doing it.

Check out the video below for some pictures from the day.

The 808-812 Youth Council's Pasta Dinner!

In April, the 808-812 Youth Council, with some help from the Management Office, hosted a pasta dinner for the residents of 808 and 812. The youth did everything from help prepare food to serve dinner, and they did a great job. Check out the video below for some pictures from the event.

Winter crafts!

The kids of the 808 Activity Room have been busy crafting all winter, sprucing up the room with snowflakes, snowmen, paintings, coloring, and more.

Check out some of their work below, they did a great job!

Taco cooking class!

We were lucky enough to have another cooking class with the Cocoa Lady earlier in January! This time, we made chicken tacos with all kinds of extras, including guacamole, sour cream, cheese, salsa, and more!

The tacos came out great, and the kids really enjoyed making them. Check the slideshow below for some pictures!