Happy Valentine’s Day, from all of us at Spectrum. Today and every day, we are so grateful that people like you open your hearts to our youth, to make sure they have a safe place to be, a supportive community, and the help they need to thrive.

Thank you for keeping our youth in your heart.

With love and gratitude,
The Spectrum Team

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“I’m always confident when I team with Danni that her young adults will not only be served well—but served with the utmost respect and dignity. She’s an all-star.” – Amanda Moore, Social Worker, South Burlington High School

Danni Pratt, one of our JOBS Clinicians, received the Promising Professional award at the KidSafe Outstanding Service Awards on April 28th, 2016.

Danni has been working in the JOBS program for over three years. With your support, Danni utilizes her skills, instinct, and caring practice to help young adults successfully transition to adulthood. Danni builds solid, trusting relationships that make her clients feel empowered and capable.

At the KidSafe luncheon, Danni’s supervisor, Gina D’Ambrosio, Coordinator of the JOBS program, offered these kind words:

“I’m so thrilled and honored to have this opportunity to recognize the amazing work of Danni Pratt. Her commitment, hard work, professionalism, and amazing skills have made an impact on many young lives. She gets the complexities of navigating the world for the adolescents she serves, who are remarkable despite the challenges and obstacles they face. In trying to capture how much of an impact she had made, I fell short of finding the right words to articulate her work. So I decided to ask her clients.”

With your support, these clients are getting help from Danni to turn their lives around:

“Danni has been very fun to work with. She is always flexible to meet, whether it is in person or over the phone. She has helped me with anything from finding a job to just having an open ear when I need to talk. She has also helped me find some other supports through Spectrum counseling. If it was not for Danni, I would probably not have the current job that I have and also some of the other supports that I have. I always look forward to meeting with Danni every week and she helps to keep me on track with my goals.”
– JOBS client

“Danni was super, super kind to me. We went out for coffee which was awesome. She helped me do a job shadow at Petra Cliffs, and with her help that turned into my first job. She was awesome.”
– former JOBS client

Congratulations, Danni!

“Danni really was a big help for me . . . I could actually count on her.” – former JOBS client

The JOBS program is a collaboration with the Howard Center, Spectrum Youth & Family Services, and VocRehab Vermont. JOBS helps youth, ages 14-26, with multiple barriers, to find and keep employment, to understand and utilize resources, and to learn and build skills needed for successful independence.

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Bob and Ryan met four years ago through our mentoring program. Since then, Bob’s helped Ryan get his boating and driving licenses, and they’ve gone to Red Sox games and ridden along on fire department ladder trucks. They’re even participating in the Spectrum Sleep Out this year in solidarity with youth who are homeless! As Ryan put it, “The past four years have been the best four years of my life, and I couldn’t be any more thankful for you, Bob.”

January is National Mentoring Month, and Mobius Mentors organized a wonderful celebration day at the Vermont State House for the mentoring programs that reach across the state.

Each mentoring program nominated one mentor to win Comcast’s Vermont Mentor of the Year. Thanks to your votes, we’re excited to tell you that Bob Wheel and his mentee Ryan received the award for Comcast’s Vermont Mentor of the Year!

We are so excited for Bob and Ryan, and so grateful to you for casting your vote to support them. The celebration was especially wonderful because Bob’s friends and family came, too! It was truly a community effort.

Bob wanted to share this amazing news and his thanks to family and friends, and we’ve posted an excerpt below:

“My good friend Mark Redmond will be quick to tell you that it takes a village to raise a child. I will happily acknowledge that the members of my village have always been very eager to help me to provide my friend Ryan with unique opportunities. Without your generous and gracious support, the past four years would not have been nearly as exciting for Ryan and me.

“So to my daughter Carol, and other members of my family who have treated Ryan as a member of the extended family, thank you. To my many good friends, who have provided spectacular visits to the beach, or top tier tickets to Fenway, thank you!! Or to those who have helped to provide Ryan with an awesome experience with a championship Cannons Baseball season, thank you.

“And to my friends at South Burlington Fire Department who have helped develop Ryan’s sense of respect for public safety and have provided him with experiences that he will forever remember, thank you! To a great friend and their spouse, who hooked Ryan up with a full set of snowboard gear to facilitate our trips to the mountain (even the one when I tore my Achilles tendon), thank you.

“To my good friends Lee Ann Donner and Mark Redmond of Spectrum Youth and Family Services, thank you. Your never-ending support and guidance ensures our success, so again, thank you.

“To Mobius Mentoring and to all of the individuals, corporations, and businesses that support mentoring in Vermont, thank you! Your generosity allows mentoring pairs the opportunity to embark on adventures that may not be possible otherwise.

“To my own mentor and Scoutmaster, Larry O’Keefe, thank you!

“But I really need to thank my mentoring partner Ryan Wallace for a great four years. The rewards in our mentoring relationship are bisynchronous my friend, they go both ways. Mentoring may end at some point, but friendship is for life.

“And to Ryan’s mom, thank you for trusting me with your kid. I know very much how important he is to you, and I appreciate your trust and support.

“So, if you are thinking about being a mentor, but think you don’t have the time, just ask yourself, who mentored you?”

We are so moved by Bob’s words of gratitude, and the words of praise from his community:

As one person put it, “You have been such a strong supporter and a big influence in his life … you’ve always stood tall by his side with such great advice and unconditional love and support.”

Ryan told us, “Bob has made me realize that school is not really a game or a joke anymore. If you want to do something, you’ve got to work for it. He’s worked for everything he has.”

One of Bob’s friends said, “You deserve recognition for showing Ryan that giving back to your own community is what can help heal a broken world.”

We couldn’t agree more! Congratulations to Bob on his well-deserved award for Vermont Mentor of the Year.

To learn more about our mentoring program and become a mentor, email Lee Ann Donner at ldonner@spectrumvt.org, or call (617) 480-8215.

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Jeetan Khadka pictured with youth from the Burlington group Diversity Rocks

Jeetan Khadka is one of our staff at Spectrum, and he is also one of the key organizers of Diversity Rocks, a multicultural youth group based in Burlington.  Diversity Rocks put together a 3-minute video featuring young Vermonters from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds celebrating the attributes that both unite and differentiate them.

The video won two awards recently — a first-place prize in the “Media Outreach” category and a third-place prize for the “Audience” category — from the Maryland-based Excellence in Community Communications and Outreach program.

See their video below — you’ll be inspired. Congratulations, Diversity Rocks!

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Chief Mike Schirling presents Annie Ramniceanu with the Outstanding Professional Award

The KidSafe Collaborative Lunch was held on April 17, 2014 and we were so pleased when our own, Annie Ramniceanu, was presented with the Outstanding Professional Award for her work to support the youth and families in our communities.

Chief Mike Schirling presented her with the award and here’s what he had to say about Annie:

“For the past 16 years Annie has been at Spectrum and her bio stands on its own. If you take a chance to read it, it’s really pretty amazing.

For those of you who have had the pleasure of meeting her, the passion she has for the work that she does is infectious. She’s held a variety of roles at Spectrum – too numerous to name. Spectrum serves over 2,000 youth and families annually and Annie has a direct hand in many of those contacts.

Emblematic of her work are the collaborations: From partnering with KidSafe and the Burlington Police Department, to groundbreaking work with the Dartmouth Medical School centered on teen addiction and a cornerstone of her efforts and a sort of signature achievement (I think) in her collaboration with courts and Judge Joseph in particular through a Rapid Referral Program… that was created in two weeks.

Judge Joseph had an idea and it took one phone call to someone as motivated and dedicated to youth as Annie to get it implemented and in action and I think that is particularly emblematic of what she does.

So all of those things centered around key programs in substance abuse and mental health that she has been an integral part of at Spectrum and all of the collaboration with various agencies to perform that great work is what has earned her today the Outstanding Professional Award.”

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