Come Meet Yerwood Center’s President!

Place: Yerwood Center Lobby
Date: Thursday, December 8th
Time: 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Light refreshments will be served

On Thursday, December 8 from 5:30 to 7:00 the Yerwood Center is holding a welcoming reception for the community to introduce the Yerwood Center's new President and CEO, Deborah Sewell. The reception will be held at the Yerwood Center. Refreshments will be served.

Deborah joined the Center about a month ago. She has extensive experience working with non-profit youth organizations over the past sixteen years, primarily in the New York City area. She was most recently Executive Director and Vice President of Operations for Educators for Children, Youth, and Families in Brooklyn.

I hope you will be able to attend!

Gordon Myers

Chairman, Yerwood Center Board of Directors

Stamford Advocate article introducing Deborah Sewell to the community (Click here)

Flyer for the reception (Click here)

Gordon Myers is named Stamford's Community

Leader of the Year 2005

Because of his work, Gordon Myers (Yerwood Center's Chairman) has been named Stamford's Community Leader of the Year. Yerwood Center's Board of Directors and Staff congratulates Mr. Myers for this award which recognizes the tremendous job he has done for the community.

" ... Since his retirement from a Senior Management position with IBM, Gordon Myers has dedicated himself to bringing improved educational opportunities to Stamford Youth. In 2002, we [The Advocate] named him a Leader in the community. Since then, his continued service on the board of the Yerwood Center - where he served as a board chairman for the past four years and was honored for his leadership last year - has further demonstrated that his involvement was no passing fancy. In addition, he was a cofounder of Stamford Achieves, where his management and conceptual skills helped the fledgling group focus its efforts to address the educational gap between white and minority students... "

(Monsma, Durham "A letter from the publisher" The Advocate October 20th 2005)

Jazz at Yerwood

“ A Community Homecoming Celebration”

Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 6pm

Saturday, October 15^th will be Yerwood Center’s third annual Jazz at Yerwood event. This year, as in the past, the event will be held at Yerwood Center located at 90 Fairfield Avenue in Stamford, CT. Jazz at Yerwood will feature up to 7 local artists. The evening is all about great music, delicious foods, and FUN!

Please Save the Date to join your neighbors, friends, community and newcomers to Stamford for “A Community Homecoming Celebration”. Jazz at Yerwood will be an event reminiscence of the celebrations that were hosted by Dr. Joyce Yerwood to bring the community together.

Yerwood Center has undergone and continues to be renovated. During Jazz at Yerwood, there will be tours of the building to provide you an opportunity to checkout what is “New” at Yerwood Center.

Come Join Us!

Celebration Includes:

Several Jazz Artists

Fine Foods by UEI

A Full Evening of FUN

Cash Bar

$25.00 in advance

$30.00 day of the celebration

For Tickets and Information: Call 203/327-2790

Master Card & Visa Accepted

Sponsorship form

YES Summer Camp 2005

Yerwood Center’s YES (Yerwood Educational Summer) Camp’s includes academic enrichment and hands-on science & nature activities to give campers a plethora of educationally stimulating activities aimed at enhancing their skills as well as exposing them to new experiences. Our academic and science enrichment curriculum includes:

KnowledgePoints -This summer, the Board of Education has sponsored thirteen 5^th grade campers from YES Camp and the YMCA’s Teen Adventure Camp to receive KnowledgePoints tutoring. In addition, eighteen 2^nd thru 5^th graders will receive 20 hours of tutoring in reading comprehension, vocabulary and math.

Summer Reading – Each Summer YES works with the Volunteer Center to host the Summer Reading Program. With their help volunteers from several local companies dedicate their lunch breaks to read to or with a YES camper.

Summer School- YES is structure so that while required campers attend summer school, remaining campers receive academic enrichment.

SoundWaters - SoundWaters acts as camper’s first real interaction with science and nature. SoundWaters teaches twenty-four K-2^nd grade campers about Long Island Sound’s diverse marine life and covers a wide range of topics from surviving nature’s elements, to the history of the environment.

The Mill Rivers Project – Mill Rivers uncovers nature’s mysteries in the campers surrounding environment. This summer, twenty-four 3^rd- 5^th grade campers are learning key fishing techniques, how to identify and characterize a variety of fish and other sea life, and also how to identify trees and leaves.

Summer Tennis Camp – The 100 Black Men of Stamford sponsored ten YES campers to attend a four week tennis camp where campers will learn about the sport through daily two-hour practice seys.

With YES’ diverse camp curriculum campers are equipped with practical knowledge that can later be applied to the classroom. In addition to academics and science & nature, campers also participate in weekly fieldtrips to parks, museums, beaches, recreational facilities, and amusement parks located within the tri-state area. Campers also partake in physical activities ranging from swimming in the center’s pool and in and out-door team-building games.

2004-2005 Yerwood Scholars After School Program

Yerwood Center’s Scholars after School Program experienced an extremely successful program year. With over 80 students registered and collaborations with organizations such as SoundWaters and the Girl Scouts, Yerwood Scholars was able to broaden our program offerings. Even with the program’s rich academic enrichment focus, Scholar participants enjoyed a myriad of activities and events including Stamford Achieve Week where the program conducted Stop, Drop & Read and a five week on-site wildlife workshop called Zoology for Kids.

The Scholars program also provided several opportunities for parents to interact with their children. Parents were invited to learn with their child at UBS’ Technologies Fair. Through a series of interactive hands-on workstations, scholars and their parents learned about some of today’s latest technologies. PTO Meetings were conducted at the center making it convenient for parents in the community to attend. Scholar’s parents also provided great assistance to the program by volunteering to paint our new Scholars fourth and fifth grade class room and donating baked good for seasonal fundraising bake sales and can goods for our Thanksgiving and Christmas food drives.

For the third academic year, KnowledgePoints was offered to Scholars participants. Thirty-six 2^nd through 5^th graders received forty hours of individualized tutoring and were able to achieve a 1.27 grade level increase in vocabulary, 1.59 grade level increase in comprehension, and a 2.27 grade level increase in math computations. Great Job Scholars!!!

Program Activities:

ü Homework assistance

ü SoundWaters - Science and Nature Fridays

ü Girl Scouts- “Uniquely Me,”

ü KnowledgePoints

ü PTO Meetings

ü UBS Technologies Fair

ü IBM Little Tykes Computer with Young Explorer software

ü Saturday Academy

ü Zoology for Kids

ü Stop Drop & Read

Yerwood’s Own Connecticut Panthers

Back Row: Travis Bolick, Charles Adams, Jeff Thompson, Takeim Clements, Greg Muyers, Jamele Jones, Coach J’von Harris. Front Row: Head Coach Anthony Hill, William Makert, Nick fessler, Tim Claroni, Marc Fields, Joshua Smith, Joseph Roy, Ryan Blackman, Coach Marc Fields

Coaches Anthony Hill. Marc Fields and J’von Harris are fielding an outstanding AAU basketball team this year. Boys are in tenth and eleventh grades and come from various area high schools. The team has placed in the top three in every tournament this spring and is looking forward to a great season culminating in a trip to Orlando. Florida. They practice Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the Center and travel to tournaments every weekend. This is a demanding schedule for these scholar athletes and we are very proud of them.

The Panthers will be hosting their own tournament on Saturday, June 17^th at the Yerwood Center and invite everyone to come and cheer on the teams.

New Parking Lot Construction Begins

It has been about thirty years since the Yerwood Center was first built. Limited parking has always been a problem, but now a new parking lot is being built in front of the Center. When completed, it will handle over 45 cars - and make the facility look considerably better!

Annual Dinner Enjoyed By All

Over 400 guests enjoyed a night of fine dining, dancing and a silent auction at our Third Annual Dinner held this year at the Italian Center on April 13. Attendees included principals, administrators and teachers from the Stamford Public School System, members of the Board of Education and Board of Representatives, Chief of Police Brent Larrabee and Stamford's Mayor Dannel Malloy.

Recognized with the Yerwood Center Community Citizenship Awards were Dudley Williams, for nine years of service to the Stamford Board of Education, and Clodomiro Falcón, for creatively uniting Hispanic and non-Hispanic businesses and being actively involved in community affairs.

Students Asya Evans, a fourth grader from Stillmeadow Elementary School, and Da'Shena Stevens, a ninth grader from Trinity Catholic High School, were recognized as Students of the Year.