BTB BLOG

We Want to Hear from You!

Sun, 6 Jun 2010 22:35:37 -0700

Hey everyone!

Just got back from my trip to LA and it was soooo fun! I met some amazing kids at Wilson High School, Stevenson Middle School, and Jefferson High School. The students were so motivated! A lot of them want to fundraise for the kids in the Dominican Republic, film their own videos to send over there, or intern with Beyond the Block. We are overwhelmed at the support and kindness shown by these awesome students!

If you are one of the kids we met through our presentations, leave us a comment by clicking on “Add a comment” below. Did you like our video and presentation? Do you have any ideas for how you’d like to get involved? We’d love to hear your ideas, or you can just say hi:-)

Over the summer we’ll be working on putting together a new, more interactive blog, but I’ll update this one a few times before then, so check back often!

Take care you guys! Hope to see you all again sooooon!

Debbie

The BTB Video Info Sheet

Tue, 11 May 2010 13:08:37 -0700

Data collection is fun! Not! Just kidding, it’s not that bad:-) Our pre and post surveys are more than just simple data collection tools. They get kids thinking about what they know, the cultures they might want to learn more about, and the lessons they learned from watching our video, Beyond the Block: The Dominican Republic.

I love reviewing the surveys and thankfully there are a lot of them! So far we have reached about 500 students through our classroom presentations. The only bad part of all this is that it’s just lil old me sitting in front of my computer inputting the data from these pre and post surveys. It’s getting done, but it’s a slow process!

Soon, we’ll have a bunch of student testimonials up here on the website so you can take a look at what the kids think about the video (hint: they love it!). In the meantime, take a look at the preliminary data from our first three schools...we were so happy with the results!

BTB Video Info Sheet

The Annual Report is here!

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:30:21 -0800

Hi Everyone! Phew! Finally, here is our 2008-2009 Annual Report, ready to post online! Take a look and learn about what we’ve been up to in the past year and what we’re looking forward to accomplishing in the future.

2010 is going to be a huge year for us--I’m so happy you’ve come along for the ride!

Click below for the report and let us know what you think in the comments! Please note that all information in the Annual Report is copyright protected.
Annual Report.pdf

Haiti Needs Our Support

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:25:25 -0800

I’ve been following the desperate situation in Haiti here and the news out of there is just heartbreaking. The Dominican Republic is right next door to Haiti, and while we have no reason to believe any of our friends there were seriously affected by the quake, we have yet to hear anything because of the poor communication infrastructure there. We know that many of our friends in the Dominican had family in Haiti...we hope that their loved ones are okay.

Tonight at our bimonthly fundraiser at Poleng, we’ll contribute our 10% of the bar tab to Partners in Health. Giving emergency funds can get kind of sticky, so I was careful to do my research. The reason why I chose Partners in Health is because they’ve been in Haiti since 1987 providing direct health services. They know the needs of the community and since they are well-established there, they have already set up a temporary field hospital. Here is a message from their website:

A major earthquake centered just 10 miles from Port-au-Prince has devastated sections of the city and knocked out telephone communications throughout the country.  In an urgent email from Port-au-Prince, Louise Ivers, our clinical director in Haiti, appealed for assistance from her colleagues in the Central Plateau: "Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS... Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us."
We are still in the midst of collecting information from all our sites in Haiti, and determining how we can best help with the recovery efforts in the areas hardest hit.
If you can’t make it out to Poleng tonight, please consider making a donation to Partners in Health here.

Our thoughts are with the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

AHMI Presentation

Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:00:50 -0800

We had such a great time in Phoenix at the American Humanics Management Institute. American Humanics is a program that my college (University of San Diego) and many others offer to prepare students for a career in nonprofit management and human services. My AH education gave me some great experience, so when I when I was offered a chance to speak to students at the AH conference this year, I immediately said yes.

I saw my old teacher from USD, Teresa Van Horn, which was awesome, and I sat in on some great presentations about Fundraising and Board Development. I also did some Career Coaching for a few college students. We looked over their resumes and talked about their future goals. It was really fun. Going to AHMI made me feel like the future of our world is in good hands!

Our presentation went pretty well--it was called From Idea to Action: Starting Your Own Nonprofit Corporation. I had no idea that the students were going to come in with such passionate, well-developed ideas! I was blown away! They are way past where I was at their age! Haha! We had a lot more participation than we expected, so we didn’t quite get to finish. Special thanks to volunteer extraordinaire Hendrick White for all his help. He is like the Wizard of Oz hanging out behind the curtain--I couldn’t have done it without him!

For all of you who were in the presentation and would like a copy of the PowerPoint, here it is:
AHMI Presentation D.Ribera.pdf. If you have any problems viewing it, feel free to email me. And while you are here, please take a look around our website! Follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or send me your contact info so I can include you on our mailing list!

I love helping out people who are just starting out in the nonprofit field and I like hearing what other people are doing, so if you have any questions don’t hesitate to email or call me! Oh, and be sure to leave a comment to let us know what you thought about our presentation!

Happy 2010! Big things are about to happen with BTB! I’ll keep you updated!