Joy In Our Town

In February, Gift of Life Chief Operations Officer Melody Jones and Growing Our Own Youth Director Jessica Whatley went on the Trinity Broadcasting Network program Joy In Our Town to share what Growing Our Own Youth is doing to help prevent teen pregnancy in our community.

You can catch a recording of the segment below!

Survive and Thrive 2013

This year we took the past concept of Survive and Thrive and changed it up! Instead of having all 8th grade students travel over to ASU we brought Survive and Thrive to them. Over three days, Willie Spears from The Willie Spears Experience spoke to over 1500 eighth grade students at nine middle schools in our Montgomery Public Schools system.

Willie using an interactive activity with students at Carr

Willie with our two REAL Facilitators, Amelia Purifoy and Brittney Brooks

Willie speaking to students at Baldwin Middle School

Willie at Floyd Middle Magnet

 

Willie at Goodwyn Middle School

Willie at Brewbaker Middle

Willie truly has a gift and captures the students attention and keeps them engaged to share an important message with them. His message focused on teen pregnancy prevention and STD prevention while instilling in the students the importance of making healthy decisions even at their young age.

Check out some of the comments received over the week.

Very powerful, I have never heard it put like that.
W. Levi Gailliard
Montgomery, AL, School District Consultant

 You were able to get on their level and then intellectually take them to another level.
Coach Jeff Corley
Capitol Heights Middle School, Montgomery, AL

 Willie brought it home. This is exactly what our students needed. Real. Relevant. Right on time.
Rod James
Assistant Principal, Goodwyn Middle School
Montgomery, AL

 

Willie Spears gave us exactly what we needed. I really enjoyed your presentation, you just kept it real. Keeping it real, great job.

Mr. Everett, PrincipalGeorgia Washington Middle School,
Montgomery, AL

 Amazing! Excellent. You were able to talk to my son in ways that I could not.
Ms. Peoples
Parent of Carr Middle School studentMontgomery, AL

 

Each student received a pencil with the Growing Our Own Youth information on it that day and will received a bracelet with the message "WAIT" on it in the following weeks when we go to deliver a follow up survey.

Willie with Southlawn Principal Mr. Vaughn

Growing Our Own Youth and Gift of Life are thankful to our sponsors and the team that helped put this together. A special thank you to AKD, Montgomery Public Schools, and our planning team! Finally, a huge thank you to Willie Spears himself!

Teen Pregnancy Numbers

We're so thrilled that Alabama as well as all the four counties we serve saw declines in their teen pregnancy numbers from 2011. Not just a decline, but Alabama teen pregnancy rate reached an ALL TIME LOW. Want to know the details? Here are the teen pregnancy rates from 2010 to 2011. Congratulations Alabama teens! Here's to watching those numbers go down every year. Below you can see the rates for 2010 and 2011 as well as a graph showing what a difference the last ten years has made. A big thank you to the Alabama Campaign to prevent Teen Pregnancy for these graphs.

Alabama

2010: 32.5    2011: 29.6

That's an 8.9% decrease!

Montgomery County:

2010: 40.2  2011: 33.4

That's a 17.1% decrease!

 

Autauga County:

2010: 26.5  2011: 18.8

That's a 29.1% decrease!

 

Elmore County:

2010: 27.7  2011: 22.8

That's a 17.7% decrease!

 

Lowndes County:

2010: 45.8  2011: 32.5 

That's a 29.0% decrease!

How Do You Slice Your Pizza?

On Monday January 14th, the Youth Leadership Board was privileged to have Clay Carroll from State Farm come speak to them about learning to handle and budget their money. Since the group consists of Juniors and Seniors in high school the timing was perfect. Many of them will be in college soon and having to make financial decisions on their own for the first time.

Clay began the presentation by talking about successful people and how they handle their money. He noted the importance of having a plan, setting aside money, leaving set aside money alone, and protecting themselves from risk. He used the example of slicing a pizza to help them understand the idea of budgeting and gave each of them the tools to begin creating their own budget. Even if all of their money comes from their parents, he helped them understand that beginning to budget now will only help them later.

Clay left the students with four rules for building financial security.
1: Protect first that which you can least afford to lose... your potential earning power.
2: Protect yourself from large losses - which might be rare - but from which it would be difficult to recover financially. These are inexpensive to insure against.
3: Always have a liquid cushion to fall back on for emergencies and opportunities.
4: Save/invest as much as you can, as often as you can, starting as SOON as you can.

Many of the students expressed that they learned a great deal of information and have a new understanding of the importance of budgeting money. Clay helped Growing Our Own Youth further our mission of enhancing the future of today's youth by strengthening area families through education and community involvement.

What We Have Been Up To Lately

Youth Leadership Board Meeting: 

On November 12, the Growing Our Youth Program hosted its third Youth Leadership Board meeting. During the meeting, students helped stuff calendars that will be given to staff, clients, and contributors of The Gift of Life Foundation during the holiday season. Also, Jessica discussed upcoming events and the students looked over the t-shirt design they created for the 2012 Youth Leadership Board t-shirt.

Youth Leadership Service Project at M.A.N.E.:

Today students from the Youth Leadership Board went to volunteer at the Montgomery Area Nontraditional Equestrians center. Students watched a short video representing M.A.N.E.'s mission and then went right to work. Students helped paint the office of the M.A.N.E center, which was a lot of fun. The Youth Leadership Board members worked so hard and really made an effort to paint as much as they could. After painting, students were allowed to go into the stables and see all of the horses. They really enjoyed getting to pet the horses and see what M.A.N.E. is all about. Overall, it was a great morning at M.A.N.E.  The service project was a lot of fun and was definitely worth all the hard work. 

                                     

Youth Leadership Board Training

This weekend the Growing Our Own Youth program held its first Leadership Board Training. The training was held on October 20 at the American Red Cross and it was definitely a success. The goal was to educate board members on the dangers of risky behaviors and how to avoid those behaviors through maintaining healthy relationships. 

The morning started off with speakers, Kachina Kudroff and Ivy Singletary, who are SHAPE Peer Educators. They discussed sexual decision making, which included talking about STIs, communication in relationships, and they discussed pregnancy. They gave a SHAPE quiz to the students to see how much they actually knew about sex before giving their presentation and it was really interesting to see how confused some students were regarding certain myths about sexual behaviors. One of the questions stated: All STIs have symptoms. The answer was false, however many of the students thought that if someone got an STI they would definitely see symptoms from it. They quickly learned that isn’t always the case and most people never show signs of actually having an STI. The group learned so much from the SHAPE Peer Educators and they did a great job speaking about these tough issues. 

After a short break, the Youth Leadership Board welcomed Christina Clark, from the Alabama Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, to come speak. She presented a game where students had to create movie posters about the different STIs and present these posters to the group. Each poster included an STI and its symptoms, treatment, and how it was transmitted. The students really enjoyed this game! It was a great way to learn the different STIs. 

After lunch, the Youth Leadership Board had the pleasure of hearing Nic Carlisle from Aids Alabama speak. He discussed advocacy and how students need to pick something they are passionate about and advocate for it. His presentation was really great and led to interesting discussions among the students. I was so impressed with how passionate some students were about standing up for things they believe in and promoting these things in their schools. 

Overall, the Leadership Board Training went really well and each student that attended really took something away from the experience. The Growing Our Own Youth program is grateful to those students who participated in the conference. 

~ Frances 

Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day

“I light a candle in celebration for all I know you would have been. I look into the light, feel the brightness of your spirit and the spark touches my heart….” This quote represents the atmosphere of the Candlelight Memorial Service held in honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  The River Region Community Action Team held the event at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts on Monday, October 15, 2012. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is observed in the United States and around the globe on October 15th with an International Wave of Light. Candles were lit at 7 p.m. to honor this tradition.

Jessica and I had the privilege of attending this event and it was so neat to see people come together in remembrance of those who have experienced pregnancy loss and infant death, which includes but is not limited to miscarriages, stillbirths, SIDS, SUDI, or the death of a newborn.  The event began at 6 p.m. and everyone who attended was able to reflect on whom they were there to support or remember. Also, a chaplain from a local hospital gave a brief speech on loss and remembrance. Everyone who attended was able to say whom they came to remember or support and it was interesting to hear the different time spans in which people had experienced a loss. Some families were at the memorial service in remembrance of a recent loss and others were there in remembrance of a loss that happened many years ago. One family was at the memorial service representing a loss from the 60’s. It was awesome to see that even though many years had past they still made an effort to come support their loved one that had passed.  

Over all, the experience was truly touching and I am glad to see people who have had the unfortunate experience of pregnancy and infant loss unite together and form a community who can support and lean on each other through the trials they have experienced.

 

~Frances