2024
Mid April-Mid June 2024 Updates
Youth Action Team Updates:
Orange You Glad: The Galvin YAT wrapped up the year by preparing orange foods/drinks/treats for the staff members. The kids wanted to show their appreciation for school staff so chose orange drinks and snacks and made posters that read “Orange You Glad It’s Almost Friday?” that were put out in the main office. We hope that many were able to stop by and enjoy some sweet treats courtesy of the YAT!
Senior Send Off: We celebrated our seniors on May 23rd at our weekly YATL meeting. The seniors gave the underclassmen some advice and reflected on their most memorable YATL moments. The underclassmen voted on superlatives for the seniors. We had pizza and a lot of laughs! We wish Grace, Alexis, Sienna and Abby the best of luck next year and look forward to their coming back to visit real soon!
Pickleball: The WMHS YAT wrapped up its year with a student/staff pickleball tournament on June 11th after school. Lots of fun was had by all! The class of 2027 also served slush at the event so even those who weren’t participating in the tournament were enjoying themselves!
Summer Safety Camp: The YATL are busy planning the second annual Summer Safety Camp (formerly HRC) which will be held from June 24th – June 27th at the Americal. The YATLs are joining with the Rec Dept and WPD in preparing this camp for the youth of Wakefield. We have lots of fun and exciting activities planned for the campers and look forward to this memorable week!
Amigos Update: Our Wakefield Amigos club recently got funding to attend a field trip to the Stoneham Zoo. This was many of the kids first time to the zoo and they had a blast!!! They are also planning an author talk for both the students and community for the fall. Stay tuned for more information.
Community Outreach: Our YATLs have been not only been busy working on their projects, but they have also been at many community events this spring. They had a table at Warrior Pride Night on June 5th and they had about 20 incoming freshmen sign up for more information about our club! They also participated in Festival by the Lake on June 8th where they provided glitter tattoos to the youth in attendance. They also will be participating in Rep Kate’s Recycling Event on June 29th.
84 Project: Alannah is still busy putting together a creative presentation to showcase her findings for this project. Wakefield already has a very strict tobacco permit policy so she is going to focus on mapping how far stores with tobacco permits are from youth centered buildings/activities (schools, BGC etc). We are excited to see what she comes up with!
Other Coalition Updates:
Senior Night took place on May 28th. Over 150 seniors attended and played games, got henna tattoos, jumped on the bouncy house, pet baby animals and ate delicious food! The kids all had a great time!
Adult Mental Health First Aid took place at the Beebe Library on Friday, May 31st from 9:00am-1:00pm. While we had 12 participants register for the training, only 3 came to the training. A special thank you to the Beebe Library for sponsoring this training.
WMHS Positive Student Support Initiative: Supported by Wake-Up, facilitated by Martha DeCecca. Students create their own after school clubs, have project groups, and facilitate peer tutoring.
Gambling Prevention Workshop Ryan Rivard (Riverside) and Andrew Cedrone (WPS) presented to parents on the growing problem of gambling among youth on April 25th via Zoom. This presentation was part of our Parent University workshops.
Gambling Conference for Prevention Professionals took place on May 14th at the Marriot in Worcester. Many members of the MVPHC attended and gained valuable insight into the growing gambling problem in our state and how to effectively address it.
Youth at Risk Conference took place on May 22nd at Endicott College. Many members of the MVPHC attended workshops on a variety of topics that are relevant to our work with youth today. Topics included: vaping, healthy relationships, trusted adults etc. This is always a valuable conference and many learned useful and relevant take-aways that can be used with the youth we work with.
Community Support Meet & Greet took place at the Beebe Library on Thursday, May 23rd as part of Mental Health Awareness Month. Jason Stone, Tracy Rizzo, Amy Rando, Craig Calabrese, Mollie from Respond and Jennifer Waczkowski were all in attendance to answer questions about the mental health services available in Wakefield. Unfortunately, the attendance was very low.
Human Trafficking Lunch & Learn took place on June 6th at the Americal Civic Center. This event, sponsored by WAAV, was put on by Boston University’s Immigrants’ Rights and Human Trafficking Program and helped attendees learn the signs of human trafficking and resources to assist survivors of human trafficking. There were over 25 people in attendance and we hope to have a follow up training in the months to come.
