Meeting on November 7, 2010

I. Ice breaker (warm-up)

II. Strike system contract

III. Updates on committee projects

IV. Brainstorm ideas for youth training (skills)

We started off the meeting with a short ice-breaker to get to know everyone in the group. Then, the strike system was introduced and everyone signed a contract adhering to the rules stated. Later, everyone split up into their committee groups.

Go Lucky Green:

-ink cartridge collection box

-gift wrapping at Borders

-chinese arts and crafts

Start Simple Eat Well:

-make and focus on desserts

trying to find instructors

-Harriet Tubman Community Center $15/hr

-budget is $1000

Social Event Group:

-holiday dessert tasting/party on December 17

-have a sample of desserts and drinks (homemade)

-cultural foods

-$7 per person

-raking leaves/shoveling snow (possible fund raising ideas)

Edit: New revised application! Apply now!

Youth Council applications

AACA Youth Council applications are out for the 2010-2011 school year! Apply now! If you have any questions, please contact Chealyn Tim at chealyn@aaca-boston.org or 617-426-9492 ext. 231

Update on What's Been Going On 2010

Since the Career Expo, AACA have accomplished many things and have taken on various new projects. In March, AACA was able to hire 20 youth to work for the Census 2010 and gave a stipend of $320 to each youth. As a continuation of the Go Lucky Green project from last year, AACA have also attempted to market bamboo and jade plants through the Youth Council to a greater number of buyers.

One of our most endeavoring project in 2010 is the Start Simple Eat Well classes, in which AACA hires professional instructors to teach students how to make delicious and efficient meals. So far, the May 22nd class has been the most successful class. Part of the success may be contributed to the Gala. It gave us the chance to outreach and get the words out about our initiative. Looking ahead, AACA hopes to continue offering these cooking classes in the summer and the following months.

Lastly, we have also continued our annual SummerWorks program to train future community leaders.

Career Expo

On Friday,November 20 at 5-7 pm we held our first Career Expo on the fourth floor of AACA. It was a successful event! We knew there were many events happening on the day such as the movie New Moon and another event in Boston Latin School, The Hypnotist Show and was not sure of the outcome of attendance to our event. To our surprise we had a total of 38 students from around the Boston area attended this evening event. Students from Revere, Malden, East Boston, and Boston came looking for volunteer and internship opporutnities! The feedback we received from the students were this is the first time they heard of such an event.


Before the event we spent over two months planning the event and reaching out to organizations and businesses. We contacted over 50 organizations and was able to secure six organizations. The organizations were Boston Cares, Best Buddies, The84.org, Zumix, Samaritans, and Urbano, and obviously AACA. This has been a great learning experience because the whole event was organized by the youth council members. Here are a few pictures taken as the youths set up for the event. More pictures will come. Look for upcoming activities, events, and programs brought to you by the youth council members. Happy Thanksgiving!

What is Up with AACA after a long hiatus?

AACA Youth Council accomplished many things over the months of August to October. We started summer with Summer Youth Leadership and Career development from July 6-August 24, 2009. These were a series of workshops held every Wednesday. Workshops included Intro to basic finance and Wall Street 101, Resume workshop, College Transition workshop, Community Based Art for Social Change workshop, Healthy Eating workshop, Healthy and Safety workshop and also Workplace training. We were also very fortunate to have a few summer works students in our program this summer, and they had a few field trips like the Red Sox game, and Boston Harbor field trip. Summer Works students also collaborated and attended APA History and Issue 101, Community Struggle, and Identities workshops. Also finance class was held, this class was taught by Jonathan Chan, one of our volunteers. We continued our “Go Lucky Green” project by being part of the August Moon Festival in Chinatown. We held a watermelon contest during the August Moon Festival.
In September we held a youth council meeting, with youth present to decide what is next for us. We also have a column in the Sampan Newspaper, youth would write about topics to be in the community youth voice. Some youth also went apple picking September.
In October we also held another youth council meeting, to talk about the upcoming months and what will happen. We will be having an employment fair (E-fair) in November 20 from 5pm-7pm. Also “Beyond High School”, this is for students to learn and develop skills, and also to see connections between school, work and their future adult life. A schedule will soon be out. During our next youth council meeting we will discuss more about the upcoming 2009-2010 United Way Youth Venture project, which we were a part of last year with our “Go Lucky Green”.

Friday Meeting 6/19/2009

In Friday's meeting, we worked on our report for our Go Lucky Green Project. We evaluated what we've accomplished in our project as well as the obstacles we faced. Through our project, we learned how a business develops and function. At the end, we concluded that the project turned out differently than what we thought it would be.We think that if we continue with this project next year, we would stick with the "green" concept and try a different approach instead. We might sell a different product rather than bamboos, because we didn't really make a profit from selling bamboos. However, it was a great learning experiences for us. We've also concluded that we would be more successful if we had a bigger budget, and was given more time to work on it.