April Letters from the LOFT

We are really excited to let you all know that our very own Howard Hayes and Catie Tollefson have been promoted to Assistant Director roles. Howard will focus on Middle School direction and Catie will focus on High School. We will have more staff growth updates to share soon as we hire our new Director of Youth Programs.

This means that moving forward, your main contact for middle school will be Howard, and will continue to be Catie for High School. For Howard and Catie's contact information, see below!

Summer is right around the corner! Enroll soon to secure a spot!

Here's some of what we've been up to lately!

High School

• TEENworks participated in the recent job fair and tabled at all four city high schools.
• Our East High Study Tables staff, Wilson Seeley, has been offering an 8th grade bridging opportunity for student athletes. Students from O'Keeffe, Sherman, and Blackhawk meet Wilson at East where they get to work out in the high school spaces, get to know some of their older athlete peers, and participate in homework help sessions.
• Our teens had a learning day with our program chef Tyrone. The learned about different Asian foodways, selected recipes to try, made a shopping list, then headed to the Global Market. They visited some of the vendors to try the professionally cooked version of the foods they wanted to cook, which were dumplings, Vietnamese egg rolls, and pad thai. Then they came back to GCC to cook the meals themselves and eat again! Thank you Tyrone!!
• Keith has been taking youth on field trips to Olbrich Gardens and local garden stores to learn, plan, and purchase seeds and other supplies for the garden season ahead.

Middle School

• Youth and staff were very excited to go on a leadership retreat with Camp Manitowish again this year. It went so well! They did two nights at a beautiful camp in Grafton Wisconsin. They did team building games, solved problems and overcome challenges together, they had to work through frustrations and challenges as a team. It was the first time they got to be overnight as a group for a long time. Students were really unplugged and barely on devices. The Manitowish staff were great and so happy to be with the kids again, we were the first group of the season. It was a huge bonding experience for the youth. Youth said they got to know others who they normally wouldn’t have been close with. Students who had a hard time getting along at the beginning of the trip had meaningful conversations and became friends. They were going outside of their comfort zone and there were a lot of firsts. First time being up north, first time seeing the stars so bright, first over-night away trip with friends.
• We have this great ongoing STEM partnership with WARF. Recently, they connected us with an opportunity to partner with PBS, who is working on a project called Meet The Lab. They create educational STEM resources. Meet The Lab program designers worked with our youth to get input on how user-friendly a new computer program is for youth. Our youth offered suggestions for changes to make the program easier for youth to interact with and understand. When PBS releases the virtual lab to the public, LOFT Girls Inc youth will be credited for their support!
• LOFT Girls Inc. donated finished their tie blanket project and donated them to DAIS. They received a sweet thank you letter for their support. They loved this project and already chose their next community service direction. They will be learning about the work of Shelter From The Storm animal rescue and learning how to make homemade dog treats to donate.

Important dates coming up:

• May 27: MMSD and LOFT Closed
• May 30: MMSD and LOFT Closed, Memorial Day
• June 3: Last day of LOFT school year program
• June 9: Last day of MMSD school year
• June 13: First day of LOFT summer MS and HS program (Middle School 6^th grade only)
• June 20: MS 7^th and 8^th grade students begin summer program
• July 1: LOFT Closed
• July 4: LOFT Closed
• August 12: Last day LOFT summer programs