La Victoria Presented the 8th Ward Community Leadership Award

Elizabeth Glidden and La Victoria staff: Jorge Figueroa, Robyn Angulo, and Jessica Retamal

Friday, January 28th, La Victoria youth program was given the 8th Ward Community Leadership Award. Council member Elizabeth Glidden introduced us by recognizing that the City of Minneapolis is in need of programs that support the Latino population. La Victoria has been just such a program. La Victoria has made a difference by surrounding Latino youth with one-on-one and group mentoring programs. La Victoria has supported Urban Ventures’ mission to break the cycle of generational poverty this past year by providing caring adult mentors to over 150 Latino youth of South Minneapolis. We strive to empower these youth to walk forward in victory over their family situations, school struggles and community pressures. We are proud of so many of students who are realizing their potential and changing the community. La Victoria and Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation are honored to receive this recognition from the City Council of Minneapolis.

Thank you to all volunteers, supporters and community members that have continued to make La Victoria possible through encouragement, faith and support throughout the past years.

Blessings,

Robyn Angulo, La Victoria Coordinator

Life Time Fitness bike drive

Jill Osborn (President, Urban Ventures)

At Urban Ventures, the Midtown Greenway runs between our Colin Powell Center and our Kix Field.  This means our kids and families have a great, safe place to ride bikes!  However, most of them do not own bikes.  One day I asked a little girl in our Learning Lab if she had a bike.  She told me she had but it had been stolen.  She said, “You know that’s what happens when you live on the first floor.”  (No, I didn’t know that!)

Biking is a great exercise for our kids and they love it.  So we ask individuals to donate bikes that they or their kids aren’t using (as long as they are in great shape).  This summer, the number of our kids grew and the number of bikes donated didn’t keep up.  So Lifetime Fitness came to the rescue.  Cheryl Anderson, Foundation Administrator of the Life Time Fitness Foundation started a bike collection at their world headquarters.

Staff donated adult bikes, childrens’ bikes, bike buggies, helmets and razor scooters.  And there was one brand-new kid’s bike, a “Razor Edge” .  I asked Cheryl about the bike. It turns out that Torii Miller was planning to donate a bike from her home, but found her husband had already donated it to another organization.  Well, Torii was determined to help our kids out.  So being a Project Manager in the Creative Services Division of Life Time, she started her own drive to raise money from the Creative Services team.  She then went and bought a new bike and helmet to donate from the team.

Thank you Cheryl, Torii, Creative Services Team, Life Time Fitness staff!  Through your donations we will have more kids on bikes enjoying the outdoors!  Our youth leaders always travel with them.  In this picture, we have Robyn Angulo, Program Director, LaVictoria, which is an Urban Ventures program focused on mentoring Latino youth.  If you are out on the Greenway, you may see Robyn with a group of Latino teens.  Please say “Hola!”.

Robyn Angulo, Urban Ventures and Cheryl Anderson, Life Time Fitness

Fish Camp 2010

Robyn Wenstrom Angulo (Director, La Victoria)

La Victoria took myself, Eric Chavoustie and Danny along with 7 students to Mound Depot, off of Lake Minnetonka today to spend an amazing day at FISH CAMP with Dan Jasper and his wife Jill.  The day started out extremely early with pick-ups at 7am, but after waking students up and driving through traffic we got there around 9am.

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Here was a day’s schedule:

Introductions

Free Rods & Reels & Learning about them

Free LOADED tackle boxed & Learning about them
How to tie knots

Casting Outside w/ a fun team relay cast-off

Boat Safety Practice

Fish Rules/Regulations with Fish identification & finally learning how to hold the fish

Boat Rides

And FINALLY Fishing!!!

With a little bit of swimming

We had an absolutely blast with the Jaspers.  Dan was such a blessing to our students and even though there was a lot of learning, our students stayed very interested and alert to learn more about the trade of fishing.  I would definitely recommend it to those interested.

Our teens take a stand against gun violence

Robyn Wenstrom (Director, La Victoria)

On May 9, two gang-related shootings occurred during the Cinco de Mayo celebration on Lake Street, and one of the shootings was just a block from the Urban Ventures campus. Our La Victoria participants were at the celebration and witnessed the shootings. Yesterday, May 16, with support from MADDADS, our teens held a peace celebration and took a stand against gangs and violence.

We’re proud of our kids for standing up for their neighborhood, their families and themselves. Follow this link to see local news coverage of the peace celebration and listen to our kids as they talk about their fear and their determination.

Teaching teens to make a difference

Robyn Wenstrom (Director, La Victoria)

Each month we organize community service activities for our teen participants. Last Friday 15 people from La Victoria packed food at Feed My Starving Children in Coon Rapids, Minn. By the end of the 2-hour shift, 114 boxes of food were packed. That’s 24,624 meals, enough to feed 67 kids for one year. It was an amazing experience to see our students working together and with other community members taking a small step forward to make a large impact!

Simple acts show you care

Jessica Retamal (La Victoria Youth Worker)

It was no special Tuesday. I had some errands to run so I called up one of our La Victoria students to tag along. Christian and his younger brother were excited to join so I picked them up and we swung through McDonalds. The boys got a burger and fries off the dollar menu and we continued on our way.

As we drove around we talked about music, school, finding a job for the summer, friends, and whatever else happened to come up. On the way home a song came on that Christian loved and he asked to turn it up really loud!  Being a lover of music, and this particular song that was playing as well, I turned it up and we sang out loud and laughed when we didn’t know the words.

As I pulled up to Christian’s home he asked me, “Jessica, why are you so nice to us? Is it because your mom taught you to be that way?” I thought for a second and said, “Yea, I owe a lot to my mom because I probably learned from the way she loved and cared for me. And because I care about all of you, of course I want to be nice to you!” He smiled and got out of the car.

After I pulled away I was moved by the fact that something so simple—driving around in the car, eating a dollar menu burger, singing along to songs, and listening as he told me about his day—made him smile and let him understand that I care. A car ride was all it was and he was smiling…and THAT made ME smile.