Brandi Y. bid on and won a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal, made by our wonderful Ms. Linda Rice, at last October’s Banquet & Fundraiser. Read on to hear her reflections on the evening and the work that Little Lights is doing....
On December 13, Ronada Hewitt received the Little Lights Youth Leader Award in recognition of her many accomplishments in academics, creative writing, music, community leadership, and spiritual growth. Ronada began attending Little Lights’ programs when she was 8 years old. Now, almost a decade later, she is preparing to go to college next year to pursue a degree in creative writing. Last year, she was selected as a member of the National Honor Society. Ronada has also served as a national youth leader for the World Vision National Youth Advisory Council, and was interviewed on CNN about gang violence prevention and education.
Ronada is currently working on a novel, tentatively entitled She Walks Within Colors, and hopes to finish her first book of poetry in June. She is one of many shining examples of the way God has worked in and blessed the lives of our students.
I recently substituted for my wife at the weekly Bible story lesson for the younger kids in our program. Before starting, I first asked each of them how their day went and asked for their “high” and “low” for the day. Some talked about how their teachers were angry and others talked fondly of recess. Some had very little to say and others couldn’t stop talking. It was fun to build some community with 3 shifts of small groups of 5-8 year-olds.
I read the story of the Good Samaritan for these mostly bubbly, some moody, children. The week’s story was about the Good Samaritan in the gospel of Luke. The story, of course, tells the tale of a man who gets jumped and beaten by robbers and is left for dead on the road…
Calling all Fall 2008 volunteers!
Please help us improve Little Lights’ operations by completing this short survey about your experience here. Thank you so much for all that you do for Little Lights!
On Friday, November 21, six staff members and fourteen middle school students headed out for a three-hour ride that would become a six-hour marathon of a trip to Ocean City, Maryland for the Metro Maryland Youth for Christ ALIVE 2008 conference. ALIVE is an annual weekend retreat where hundreds of middle school youth, volunteers, and youth workers gather to experience an incredibly intense weekend of worship, inspiring speakers, sleepless nights, fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, silly games, and juggling. Our kids enjoyed it immensely.
Best of all, six of our students made a decision to follow Jesus! Their names are Johnae, Aaliyah, Atiya, LaQuinte, Bryant, and Elijah. Please pray for them as they begin their exciting journeys with God. Although we rejoice at this news, we know that life will still be difficult for our kids. Please pray that all of them would discover the only true and unchanging hope we have in this life … that in Jesus Christ.
(For pictures of us at the conference, please visit our Flickr account.)
What are you thankful for? Some students from Little Lights Productions share:
LLP - What I Am Thankful For from Daniel Li on Vimeo.
Happy Thanksgiving!
On Saturday, December 6, Little Lights invites you to gather with us at the Hope Center (760 7th Street, SE) at 12:00 noon for an afternoon of food and fellowship. Lunch will be provided, after which we will praise God for all the blessings he’s given us and pray for our students, families, volunteers, donors and staff.
This is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about Little Lights. To RSVP, please contact Mijin Paik (; 202-548-4021).
Just a reminder, we will have NO PROGRAMS on Tuesday, 11/11 in observance of Veteran’s Day.
(Refer to pg. 15 of your volunteer manual for other holidays and events)
Have a great Tuesday!
There’s no telling what kind of Executive Barak Obama will be the next 4-8 years. Will he help the country out of recession? Will he be able to capture Osama Bin Laden? Will he reform health care in a positive way? For most of the students who attend Little Lights, those questions matter less right now than the hope and pride they are feeling at the election of the first African-American President. Racial Reconciliation has long been an important value here at Little Lights. For those of us who believe that there is a deep need in our nation for healing, it is a significant moment. Not often is there a palpable sense that we are living through a monumentally historic time.
I believe, however, that real and lasting change also needs to take place at the grass-roots, community level where ordinary individuals commit themselves to make their society a more compassionate and just place. I ask that you will join me in prayer and action for the healing and unity across racial lines in our nation and our city.
Today in Older Kids Homework club, students learned about how our nation elects a president, got an Electoral College Map they could take home and color as they watched the returns, and wrote letters to the new President.
Some tended towards issues near and dear to kids ages past and present including postponing the start of school till October, suggesting the opening of a big waterpark and suggesting an improvement to school lunches.
Still many of the concerns of these young citizens reflected the feelings of the nation as they wrote about the war in Iraq, improved learning environments, lower gas prices, taxes and safer cities.
“I will also like it if you make school a better place to learn,” wrote one student, before signing it with x’s and o’s.
“I want the world [to be] a better place [where] people is not picking on other people,” wrote another.
And finanally, reflecting the belief that the greatest change starts closest to home, one student wrote “Make the [Potomac] Gardens look better.”
Well, we’re working on it, friend, all of us here on staff, and our volunteers, and the larger community who supports us.
Happy Election Day to all.
Howdy ho all you Little Lights’ enthusiasts!
Just a friendly reminder from your neighborhood Volunteer Coordinator that our next New Volunteer Orientation is scheduled for Saturday, 11/8, from 10am-2pm at the Hope Center. Please be advised, attendance to one of these orientations is MANDATORY for all volunteers during their sojourn here at LLUM. To ensure everyone is accounted for for lunch, please email me to RSVP. That rhymed.
Danke!
October 4, 2008 marked the beginning of a new and exciting tradition for Little Lights with the addition of a silent auction to our annual fundraising banquet. After months of preparation by Amelia and myself, we couldn’t have been more pleased with the final outcome. The event took place at the beautifully renovated Hilton Arlington and featured guest speaker, Brian McLaren. One of our board members, Laura Ingalls, helped put together an extraordinary video that was shown, we got to hear from our academic director, Sara Alsup, and were also treated to perfomances by the Little Lights choir and the inspiring Ronada Hewitt (a former student at Little Lights).
The silent auction was a lot of fun for everyone and featured such items as a Washington Wizards basketball signed by the entire team, beautiful jewelry from White & Ivory, and our fabulous staff even pitched in and donated some of their services to be auctioned off. (Two lucky winners will be getting a home cooked holiday meal from Ms. Linda, our associate director!)
Through this event, we were able to raise $25,000, which is incredible. This was my first big event as a member of Little Lights, and I was amazed at the generosity of our supporters. I would love to see our goal of $30,000 met and would ask you all to consider donating online to help us do so. All of the money will go directly to our programs at Little Lights.
Thank you so much to all who were involved in this event. We could not have done this without you!
Due to many conflicts, we have decided to reschedule the October 18th Christmas Party informational meeting. The new date is November 8th, 10:00 am at the Hope House. Anyone who is interested in helping out in anyway should attend for more details on what you can do.
See you there!
Career Day is a new feature at Older Kids’ Homework Club. Andy Miller surveyed the students’ interest through the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Then Andy made some phone calls.
The truck and the Firemen came from our local Fire House on 8th street. When they first arrived, they explained to the kids that they could be called to an emergency at any time. Sure enough, a call came in, and the truck blared away from the Hope Center with lights and sirens going. But true to their word, the Firemen returned and the students had a lot of time to climb around the truck.
Upcoming Career Days will feature a personal trainer, and a pediatrician. It’s great to give our students this real world exposure, and inspire them to achieve their goals.
The Academic Coordinating Super Team (Andy Miller, Kati Leone, Michelle Osborne, and Jason Kang) and I are finally coming up for air after August and September’s big push to launch programs. During the month of August, we got up to speed on the pressing academic issues our children face through training and reading, we created a plan to assess and build student skills, and then we executed.
National research shows that the Achievement Gap affects disproportionately children who live in poverty. We knew that our Little Lights kids were behind, but until we diagnosed their skill levels, we were unsure of just what their skills were.
In the month of September we gave 113 academic assessments covering skills in reading and math. We found that Little Lights students in grades 4 – 6 comprehend what they read on average at a 3rd grade level. Ongoing data gathering is also showing that our children in grades K – 3 read between a pre K and 1st grade level. In math, many of our oldest students lack skills in basic multiplication and division, while our youngest ones lack skills in addition and subtraction.
From that data we created learning plans for each of our students in our Reading and Math Heroes programs, prioritizing skills and allowing tutors to see at a glance the areas of pressing need for their students. Now we start working on keeping track of the data, and finding ways to help students practice those skills in Homework Club.
Keep checking back for news on our progress
Little Lights is a non-profit Christian urban ministry organization dedicated to showing the love of Jesus Christ to the inner city community of Southeast Washington, DC, particularly the children.
To contribute through the Combined Federal Campaign, please designate # 89156.
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