Friday, March 5, 2010

“PFT: Gruden spends day tutoring Tebow (MSNBC)” plus 2 more

“PFT: Gruden spends day tutoring Tebow (MSNBC)” plus 2 more

PFT: Gruden spends day tutoring Tebow (MSNBC)

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 04:50 PM PST

PH2005122201707.jpgIn December, the Falcons announced that former NFL running back Warrick Dunn had agreed to buy a small piece of the team, and that the other owners had approved the transaction.

Today, the Falcons announced that it's official.

"During his tenure with the Falcons and throughout his NFL career, Warrick represented the highest of NFL standards on and off the field," owner Arthur Blank said in a team-issued release.  "Warrick has a special affinity for the Falcons, as we do for him, and we are very happy he will be back in the Falcons family representing our club as a limited partner."

"This opportunity fulfills one of my professional goals to expand my knowledge and experience in the area of NFL team management, branding and operations," Dunn said.  "I am excited to be back as part of the Falcons team and, in particular, to work with Mr. Blank."

Dunn is one of seven limited partners.  Blank owns more than 90 percent of the team.

Dunn split his 12-year career between the Buccaneers and the Falcons, with five years in Tampa followed by six in Atlanta and then one last season in Tampa.  He was the 2004 Walter Payton Man of the Year, an award that deserves far more attention for its recipients than it seems to get.

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Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Tutoring is only the beginning for Charlotte Empowerment Zone kids (The Charlotte Observer)

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 05:10 AM PST

Even spread out over two adjoining apartments, 26 kids is about 20 too many.

The noise alone is overwhelming, with the yelling and laughter expanding to fill every available inch.

Still, the newly opened Charlotte Empowerment Zone in the Pressley Ridge Apartments is something of a miracle.

There are often children waiting for its doors to open Tuesday nights, jostling to get inside first for the most unexpected of reasons.

"They're helping us with our homework," says 11-year-old Moesha Brown.

"So we can go to college," adds her 9-year-old sister, Sabrina.

The empowerment zone, which started Jan. 26 with just 11 kids, represents Charlotte's first attempt at re-creating New York City's successful Harlem Children's Zone, an educational initiative serving 17,000 children in a 100-city block area of Harlem.

At its core, empowerment zones are about keeping at-risk kids in school all the way through college.

But the effort goes well beyond tutoring, into the realm of transforming entire at-risk neighborhoods through education, social services and community-building programs.

The nonprofit agency NeXus Urban Serve is behind the Charlotte zone, which was recently lauded by Mayor Anthony Foxx as "the kind of bold initiative our city needs."

NeXus has crafted six programs for Pressley Ridge, including day care/preschool education, summer school and even parent training.

Noah Manyika is the founder of NeXus, and his dream is for the success in Pressley Ridge to prompt nonprofits to create zones in all of Charlotte's troubled areas.

"Money will always be in short supply for the schools, so we need to ask ourselves as a society: Are we going to just give up, or are we going to start trying to do things differently?" he says. "How about instead of asking the child to come to us for help, we focus resources on their home and their community, to make sure it is supportive of goals in the schools?"

The key to making the zones work, he says, is forging partnerships between charities, businesses, the faith community and government agencies.

Among the first of those collaborations was an arrangement with Pressley Ridge, whose 1,500 tenants include 31 homeless families transferred last year from the Hall House temporary shelter.

Pressley Ridge has given NeXus the use of two adjoining apartments for meetings. Property manager Amber Thompson says a third will soon be added to handle growing attendance.

"That tells me this is working," she says. "It's wonderful."

Other local nonprofits, such as Urban Restoration, are offering aid through programming for parents.

NeXus also has reached out to the public schools through Sugar Creek Charter School, to become the next link in the empowerment zone chain.

Frank Martin is both a founding board member of the school and a supporter of the empowerment zone effort. He says Sugar Creek's involvement is still being explored, but one idea is to create a "fun" summer school program to be offered both at the school and at Pressley Ridge. He'd like to see it start in 2011.

"I would hope that the school would be a catalyst for other schools," he says, "just like Pressley Ridge will be a catalyst for other neighborhoods."

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Palatine center's new family lab offers crafts, tutoring (Daily Herald)

Posted: 04 Mar 2010 10:00 PM PST

At the Palatine Opportunity Center, they call their newest resource room the Family Learning Lab.

What used to be a recreational area for karate and other activities now hosts adult tutoring in the mornings and literacy and parenting classes at night.

During the afternoons, mothers and their small children spend quality time together learning crafts - from crocheting and jewelry making to scrapbooking - all led by volunteers in the nurturing surroundings of the center.

Later this month, officials from Palatine Schaumburg Township High School District 211 will install a bank of computers for families to use together.

"It's a place where families can come together with their children to learn," said Kathy Millin, Palatine Opportunity Center director.

Last month the lab drew 287 visitors, and its directors expect that number to grow - much like the Palatine Opportunity Center itself. Next month the center celebrates its 10th anniversary of serving residents in the northeast quadrant of Palatine. Last year alone it served more than 13,000 individuals.

Maria Anguinano of Palatine is one of them. The mother of three first came to the center eight years ago for English as a Second Language classes.

Soon her children attended preschool there, allowing her to add adult employment training and computer classes. She hopes to begin the General Education Development (GED) classes next.

"I love it here. There are so many things to do and share with other people," said Anguinano, a native of Mexico. "The people here have offered me a lot of help, too."

The Palatine Opportunity Center is at 1585 N. Rand Road and serves as a hub of medical and social service agencies for low-income residents in the area.

"The original partners are still here," says the Rev. Seth Moland-Kovash, president of the board and pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church in Palatine.

Founding agencies include the village of Palatine, Palatine Township, Palatine Park District, Palatine Public Library, Harper College, Northwest Community Hospital, Palatine Schaumburg Township High School District 211, Palatine Elementary District 15 and the Bridge Youth & Family Services.

Together they also offer health care, preschool classes and after-school programs, and adult computer classes.

"Every one of these agencies said they would do their part in helping to meet the needs of families in this area," Moland-Kovash said. "They brought the expertise, manpower and funding to make that happen.

"That's why I got involved," he adds, "because of that spirit of collaboration."

Kris Howard of Barrington served on the center's original board of directors and remains on the board. When asked if the center's creators ever envisioned serving that many people, she laughed.

"No way," said Howard, a Harper College trustee, former Palatine banker and administrator with the Girl Scouts organization. "We knew there were needs to be met, but we had no idea how large the demand was."

Howard was among the original organizers who worked to bring the agencies together. They responded to the growing number of families moving into the Baldwin Greens apartment complex without access to basic health care and social service needs.

While they originally offered the Edgebrook Community Center at the apartment complex itself, they soon realized they needed more space.

When a mortgage lender vacated a building near the apartments, at Rand and Dundee roads, Northwest Community Hospital officials purchased it and agreed to share the center with the other community groups.

"That's what's so great about it; these groups and organizations recognized the need and were willing to work together," Howard said.

While the main tenants have remained the same over the years, new agencies come on site to help fill evolving needs.

This month, Women In Need Growing Stronger (WINGS) will open an office with a counselor trained to help victims of domestic abuse as well as to recruit volunteers to help get the word out about their services.

Likewise, Illinois WorkNet will come once a week to connect job seekers with a broad range of employment services.

Programs change too, based on input from regular patrons. Take the YMCA's latest class. Based on feedback from families who wanted to promote fitness, the agency offered to start yoga classes.

However, women at the center had their own ideas. They countered with Zumba Fitness.

"We want to move," says Anguinano. "We want to dance."

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
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