Music: the First Finished Product

As followers of this blog know, we've been attempting to start a music program here in the new Activity Room at 808. With a new keyboard, a microphone, and Garage Band on our Mac Mini, we've been able to make a number of beats, and even record a song or two.

Recently, one of the harder-working teens who wants to be a music producer when he gets older, put the finishing touches on his first beat. It's something he made on his own, with just a little bit of coaching from an Activity Room instructor.

His music name is "DJ Shock," and with some help from the CLC instructor, we were able to create a logo, and insert that logo and his song into a video that could be posted on YouTube. We put it up on Friday, and it already has 13 "likes" and over 80 views!

We're very proud of how his song came out, and hope that he can continue to make more! The song and video can be seen/listened to below.

808-812 Makes Music!

We recently acquired a keyboard, a microphone, and some high-quality headphones for the Activity Room, enabling us to put our music program into effect.

Using this new equipment and the Mac Mini we've had for a while, we are able to use a program called Garage Band to make a wide variety of music, from rock to rap to techno.

An Activity Room instructor brought his electric guitar from home for the youth to play around with, and, even though they didn't know how to play much, they had a great time messing around and jamming on it.

Later on, we were able to use the keyboard to make a "beat" that a youth wrote a rap for. We then used the microphone to record her rap; after just a couple of hours, we had recorded a 30-second song!

We've had the equipment for about a week, and we've already done a lot with it. We can't wait to see what we come up with in the future!

Above: Zarriah preparing to record her song, a rap she wrote herself.
Below: Doodie showing his brother his guitar skills.

Above: Shahir making some music on the electric guitar.
Below: Sura and Asmaa using the guitar and beat-making program.

Below: Martha, Lena, and Sarah working on some music of their own.

Restarting the Recycling!

In an effort to improve recycling scores across the buildings and to give the kids and teens a chance to "give back," we've restarted the 808-812 Recycles! program.

Activity Room workers are going to be encouraging the kids to recycle, while also having them help sort and collect bottles, cans, and papers. We already have a few bins set up in the Activity Room, and our first recycling afternoon was very successful.

We had over a dozen kids and teens come to help us out, and we hope to get a recycling "crew" started, a designated group that will work on recycling on a weekly basis.

Below are some pictures of our new recycling set up. If you have any recyclables, feel free to drop them off at the Activity Room or Computer Lab, and the recycling crew will take care of them for you!

Above: The kids recycled a bunch of scrap paper and packed it away neatly.
Below: The updated and revamped "recycling corner."

Below: Another view of the "recycling corner."

Before and After: Take a Look!

As I said in the previous post, these have been busy weeks here at 808-812. The biggest news involves the renovation and re-opening of the all-new Activity Room! The kids love the room, and it looks amazing. Take a look at the before and after pictures below, and see how great of a job the maintenance crew did.

Turkey Craft!

Sorry for the lack of updates as of late; it's been a busy few months in the CLC/Activity Room. Hopefully, the updates will be more frequent going forward.
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Before Thanksgiving, we decided to get into the holiday spirit by doing a youth favorite: the turkey craft! All you need to do this craft is some cotton gloves, feathers, cotton stuffing, googly eyes, and craft glue. The pictures, viewable below, show how great the turkeys came out!

Above: The gloves before they were turned into turkeys.
Below: Sirak and his finished bright red turkey.

Above: The kids hard at work on their turkeys.
Below: Doodie preparing to stuff his turkey.

Lena and Sara (above) and Adem (below) show off their finished turkeys.

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Trick or treat!

On Wednesday, October 26, Renee from the Management Office led the kids on a trip to the Putnam Square Apartments to trick or treat. The residents at Putnam were very nice to the kids, giving them candy, donuts, apples, and even reading them a story!

Below is a quick slideshow featuring pictures from the trip. The kids had a great time. Thanks Renee and Putnam residents!

Activity Room Meeting

The Activity Room is changing, and prior to its renovation, we wanted to start some kind of group that would help the younger kids have a voice in what goes on in the Activity Room. We also had a meeting with the older kids/teens on ways we could better serve them, but this meeting was designed for the younger kids: we wanted to know how we could improve the Activity Room for them, what programs they'd like to see, and what changes need to be made.

We called this new group the 808-812 Youth Council, and the meeting was well-attended: attendees included Dan, Jamie, Rebecca and Shirley from the 808-812 Tenants Association, and over a dozen young people.

Suggestions included a designated time each week for a "Boys Group" and a "Girls Group" as had been done in the past; fundraising efforts to raise money to buy things for the room (a car wash and a bake sale were suggested); dividing time in the room so that older kids (13+) and younger kids (6-12) had their own time; and renewing our efforts in promoting 808-812's recycling program.

All of the ideas will be taken into consideration, and it was great to see the kids so interested in taking charge and making changes. We hope to have another meeting with the kids sometime in the coming weeks, and hope that their interest in the room translates into more respect for the room, its contents, the property, and their peers: once one has a vested interest in something, he or she will protect it more diligently.

Above: Feldano takes notes on what was being discussed.
Below: The kids listening to Jamie speak about the Activity Room.

Below: The kids listen as Fernandes makes some suggestions for the Activity Room.