Save the Date

When:   January 8, 2012 at 11 am

Where:  Shinnyo-en USA Head Temple located at 3910 Bret Harte Drive, Redwood City, CA 94061

Who:    All interested in learning more about Global Glimpse www.globalglimpse.org

What:   Presentation by Eliza Pesuit, Global Glimpse Director, Scholar Program; Laila Essimidi, Outreach Coordinator and a number of high school alumni will share the meaningful work of Global Glimpse. 

In April, Ineko Tsuchida joined Global Glimpse Director, Eliza Pesuit, during a parent workshop at Andrew Hill High School in San Jose. Ineko and Eliza shared the excitement of being around students and parents preparing for their summer service-learning trip to Nicaragua.

Global Glimpse is a Bay Area based non-profit organization working to inspire high school students through leadership and service-learning programs in the developing world. The organization’s programs build the foundation and perspectives that empower young leaders to address the global challenges of their generation.

Global Glimpse works in partnership with 22 public high schools across the Bay Area in the counties of Alameda, Marin, Contra Costa, Yolo, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara. Since 2007, they have been dedicated to serving students from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and demographics through generous scholarships.

Students are nominated to participate in the Partner School Program in the fall of their junior year. Global Glimpse supports faculty and staff at their school by nominating students with strong potential who demonstrate leadership and a commitment to improve themselves and their communities. Students who are accepted into the Partner School Program receive scholarships based on need for the summer immersion trip and participate in six after school workshops during the spring that focus on globalization, development, leadership, and service and prepare students for their summer immersion.

During the summer students travel to Nicaragua for a three week education, service-learning, and leadership experience. They are immersed in the local community through educational seminars about history, culture, development, poverty, education, global business, politics and daily field trips. In addition, students design and engage in service projects in partnership with local communities and organizations. As students gain knowledge about the developing world, they also gain personal perspective through leadership training, reality challenges, group collaboration, and self-reflection sessions. Global Glimpse exposes youth to developing countries and unlocks their potential to affect change on a local and global scale.

The results are already becoming apparent as their alumni start service groups, initiate international projects, and attend renowned universities including Stanford, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, and University of California, Berkeley.

An excerpt from an alumni letter says it best:
“Every single day in Nicaragua, there were challenges to overcome and things to do that would make such an incredible difference. While living in the moment, I did not realize how much I grew as a person. However, after returning back home it finally hit me. I came to understand what the wonderful feeling that just keeps lingering in me meant. It was the feeling that I had garnered a newfound perspective; the feeling that taught me that I should continue to be inspired and to inspire others myself. For the very first time, I learned how immense of an impact a person can make.”

Kathy Lee, Andrew Hill High School in San Jose, 2011

Remembering what we experienced on September 11, 2001, can be very difficult.  But sharing our memories and reflections of that day and its aftermath can help us give and gain a fresh perspective on our blessings as we foster peace in our lives.  Below are narrative fragments of what friends shared with me. If you would like to read more Please click here!

Shinnyo-en Foundation supports The Blake School and Nan Peterson, Director of Service Learning at the Blake School in Minnesota and a Shinnyo-en Foundation Senior Fellow. 

If you would like to read this article, please click here!

“Grab The Torch” philanthropy camp attracted 18 high school students to the beautiful countryside of Burlington, Vermont this summer for a week of service and leadership training. Students from all over the USA came to learn and work together as they developed ideas of self identity.

“Grab The Torch” is led by Dave Aldrich and is a well known and respected summer philanthropy, service and leadership summer experience open to high school students. Mr. Aldrich offers these camp experiences several times each summer in different parts of the country.

With Nan Peterson, Director of Service Learning at The Blake School in Minnesota and a Shinnyo-en Foundation Senior Fellow, many questions about service, a personal path to peace, personal values, peace, and leadership were explored.

What are my talents? What are my values? How will I use them to offer service to the world? What is suffering? What is compassion? What can I do to address the needs of the world? What can I do to make the world a more peaceful place? What is my path to peace?

Students worked with The Vermont Foundation, Ben and Jerry’s, Burton Snow Boards, the Navigator and other agencies to learn how these companies made social contributions.

“Grab the Torch” in Vermont has been generously supported by the following individuals and organizations:

• Ken Berger, Charity Navigator
• Webb Family, Shelburne Farms
• Burton Snowboard, The Chill Foundation
• Rich Davis, Vermont philanthropist
• Lois McClure Family Foundation
• Stuart Comstock Gay, The Vermont Community Foundation
• Nick Ferguson, Institute for Philanthropy, UK
• Hal Colston, Good News Garage
• Google

To learn more about this wonderful work, please visit “Grab the Torch” at www.grabthetorch.org

“Light the Darkness” Interfaith Lessons from 9/11

Sunday 9/11/2011
7:00 – 8:00 PM
Jessamyn West Park, Yorba Linda (cornor of Palm & YL Blvd.)

Please Clike here to check the flyer!  911EventFlyer2011

On Sunday evening, September 11, 2011, the Interfaith Council of North Orange County (including a wide spectrum of faiths within the northern region of Orange County, California) held its 10^th annual “Light the Darkness” 9/11 commemoration. Held at a local park in Yorba Linda, the community was first beckoned to the event with a beautiful prelude shared by the Yorba Linda Presbyterian Church Bell Choir. The event was then opened at 7:00 pm by a Sikh hymn played and sung by a local Sikh mother and daughter. The highlight of the event was a series of youth from various faiths in the community…Baha’i, Hindu, Islam, Mormon, Shinnyo-en Buddhist, and Sikh… sharing verses and comments associated with their faiths, appropriate for the occasion. This was followed by the keynote talk on the topic “Interfaith Lessons from 9/11” offered by Rabbi Frank Stern of Santa Ana, California. The talk emphasized the uplifting message of the evening that the wealth of faith diversity in our community is not to be feared, but rather embraced as a strength as it has been throughout the history of the United States. The event’s closing inspiration was the reading of a message from Her Holiness Shinso Ito by a local Shinnyo-en priest, followed by our traditional lighting of candles, where the interfaith youth light the candles of attendees in the first row, who turn and light the candles of those in the second row, who light those in the third row, and onward until the park is illuminated with hundreds of candles spreading out to the community.

The local Shinnyo-en temple in Yorba Linda, CA is a welcome and active member of the Interfaith Council. We were especially honored at last year’s 9^th annual 9/11 commemoration when the temple’s exceptional Taiko Drummers shared a prelude/beckoning as the public arrived, and then opened the event of a moving and inspiring percussion piece.

Article contributed by Nate Haase, the President of the North Orange County Interfaith Council.

Spirit Series—a breakthrough drama-based values and literacy initiative brings the wisdom and inspiration of heroic historical biographies to fourth through eighth grade students. One of Shinnyo-en Foundation’s newest grant partners, the Series seeks to engage our youth at a critical crossroads in their lives with a transformational curriculum that empowers each child to become a caring and civic adult. This June 22^nd production marked the culmination of an intensive three-week residency, during which the school’s three sixth grade classes—110 students—studied, co-wrote, staged, and would soon perform the Siddhartha renunciation story.

Once this classroom had donned antique saris, they rehearsed unison spoken word cues designed to emphasize the play’s key moments, with voices echoing thunderously. Towering behind them, an exquisite three-panel theatrical backdrop pictured Siddhartha’s footsteps fading into the distance on his path to Enlightenment.

Over 15 classroom hours during the preceding three weeks, these Latino/Hispanic and African American participants had immersed themselves in the one-act narrative. This rigorous curriculum required that they conduct historical research, master dramatic text and subtext, and contribute original poetry to the play. Participants also executed a fine arts craft: designing masks. But most importantly, students explored the wisdom of Buddhist philosophy through journaling, meditation, and rich classroom discussion.

Spirit Series anticipates a watershed year. Entering its second decade, with 25,000 L.A. area students having successfully met the Spirit Series challenge, the program stands on the threshold of widespread expansion. The organization completed its first out-of–state demonstration project this spring, delivering curricula at two of Boston’s most impacted inner-city middle schools. The Harvard Graduate School of Education conducted an analysis of the program, highlighting its unique aims and superlative outcomes. The study, along with an upcoming documentary about the Series, should propel the program to Northern California…and beyond.

As the curtain neared in Watts, each student selected a necklace beaded with one step on the Eightfold Path. Participants would use these simple instructions, from Right Conduct to Mindfulness, as guides through their performance and lives to come. Moments before the audience arrived, Series founder Richard Strauss led the group in meditation. After each student experienced a moment of personal one-on-one initiation, they were ready to begin.

During the 30-minute production, students demonstrated mastery not only of the story they told, but also of Buddhism’s key tenets. In dialogue and summary discussion, actors addressed the deepest lessons of Prince Siddhartha’s timeless journey: non-attachment, wakefulness, impermanence, and compassion. The audience’s enthusiastic applause at play’s end was matched by the joy on the sixth graders’ faces and their evident feeling of accomplishment. It was an inspirational moment to behold.

For more information about Spirit Series, please visit www.spiritseries.org or contact Richard Strauss at richards@spiritseries.org.            

1. What do your sacred scriptures and religious teachings say about the relationship between humanity and the environment?

2. In your faith tradition, what if any, responsibility or actions does that relationship require from you?

3. In your opinion, how can you use your connection between your religion and the environment to make a difference in the world?

The Interfaith Youth Forum is sponsored by the Interfaith Youth Council of Orange County. Most important for this forum, is that the dialogue questions were made up by the Council’s Youth Leadership Board. The teens from the Leadership Board were in charge of the registration table; took part as facilitators during the dialogue sessions, and at the end of the program, gave thanks to our gracious host and all the members of Shinnyo-en that made us feel so welcomed. The afternoon began with over 105 teens and 30 adult facilitators from eleven different faith traditions; meeting in the temple’s prayer hall to hear a brief presentation given by Reverend Nichelle Blanco. Her presentation included an explanation of Shinnyo-en Buddhism, their founders, origin and history. The students were then led to the “Harmony Room” for the dialogue sessions. Each student was assigned a table, along with seven other teens and one facilitator. Special attention was given to each table assignment to ensure that there was as much diversity as possible. Many students were nervous sitting next to a new person from a different culture and religion, but with the help of a fun ice breaker, these teens quickly discovered through laughter and creativity that bonds of friendship were being built. In addition to exposing teens to differing points of view; another one of the goals of the Interfaith Youth Forum is to promote friendship, support, respect and good will. By participating in the Interfaith Youth Forum, these teens are making their own difference in the world taking the day’s memories and experiences with them on into college, the workplace and into their family lives. The Interfaith Youth Forum is a platform from which young adults can learn and grow.

If you would like to know more about Then Interfaith Youth Council of Orange County, Please click below!

http://www.sarah4hope.org/Interfaith_Youth_Council/interfaithyouthcouncil/Home.html

The event’s purpose is to celebrate the students’ completion of service with YCS after-school service & leadership clubs in East Palo Alto, Menlo Park,

Palo Alto and Redwood City schools.  The event also recognizes the completion of the year for students in the YCS-180-Degrees life skills classes.

The students and their families attended the event that included dinner, a certificate award presentation from each school facilitator, and youth entertainment.  Dinner was from Bucca di Beppo and the entertainment was a lively “Bollywood” dance choreographed by one of the students.

In addition to the year-end certificates; two annual service awards were presented.  The YCS Kay Philips Service Award is presented each year to a person or organization that has made a very special contribution to support the YCS mission. The YCS Megan Swezey Fogarty Youth Service Award goes to a student who has shown outstanding leadership in service initiatives.

The Palo Alto Weekly newspaper received the Kay Philips Service Award for long-time support of YCS programs. News coverage this yearhashighlighted YCS students’ and community efforts to promote youth well-being.  Publisher Bill Johnson and community relations’ leader, Amy Renalds, accepted the award for the Palo Alto Weekly (pictured on the right).

The Megan Swezey Fogarty Youth Service Award was presented to Gabriel Ortiz, a junior at Menlo-Atherton, peer-mentor with YCS Freshmen Leadership Corps program, and leader with the YCS Fellows’ leadership team.  Gabriel has continued with YCS programs since first joining in middle school. Megan Fogarty (pictured on left) was a founder of YCS twenty years ago. Megan now works at the Stanford Haas Center for Public Service.

Student leaders in the YCS Fellows’ program served as emcees for the program and introduced adult staff who presented certificates to their students from Sequoia district high schools, Ravenswood middle schools, and Palo Alto middle and high schools. Family members cheered enthusiastically as students stepped up to be honored for choosing their path to peace through service. Redwood City students received their certificates at a celebration at Redwood High School earlier in the week.

On Saturday, April 30th, Communities for a Better Environment held the Third Annual East Oakland Earth Day Celebration with local co-sponsor, Green Pioneers. Green Pioneers is a high school student internship program run by Sarah Johnson and a group of devoted volunteers and students. Green Pioneers provides students with an opportunity to explore their interests, learn urban sustainability skills, and present their work to other students and community members. The Green Pioneers

use a large demonstration garden space, called the Castlemont Community Garden on a high school campus at 86th and MacArthur Blvd, as their learning environment.

The Earth Day Parade began on Green Pioneers’ territory on the Leadership Public School and Castlemont Community of Small Schools Campus. Green Pioneers students, ACORN Woodland and EnCompass students and other community members beat drums, sounded kazoos and proudly marched in the parade aimed at raising awareness about the importance of clean air and food justice in East Oakland.

The Earth Day Parade culminated in an event on the ACORN Woodland and EnCompass Campus. Over 30 Green Pioneers’ Interns and Apprentices presented their Urban Sustainability projects, performed songs and speeches, helped plant an elementary school garden using Aztec gardening methods,and raised over $100 in donations using their produce and a student-designed recipe book.

Green Pioneers’ Intern, Joanna Syx, in her speech said, “Have you ever been around the neighborhood and noticed how dirty it is? Well, I have and I think it’s time for a change.” The Green Pioneers attended the Earth Day event to affirm that they want to be a part of the East Oakland movement that stands up for environmental sustainability and justice. Earth Day attendee, James Minton, said, “At the Earth Day celebration, the Green Pioneers were stereotype-defying and hope-inspiring. Many teenagers are stuck in repetitive cycles of apathy, but the Green Pioneers are trying to create things.”

Leading up to the event, Green Pioneers designed their own t-shirt logo, attended Earth Day planning meetings, finished large-scale urban sustainability projects, ranging from pond design to urban beautification, and canvassed the East Oakland community for attendees. The Green Pioneers pursue camaraderie and a sense of discipline, while earnestly demonstrating their message. In the process, they learn job skills, interpersonal skills, and pursue healthy and sustainable lifestyles that are corrective to the food deserts in which they live. Earth Day would not have happened without them.

YCS held its 20th anniversary celebration on Thursday, April 28, 2011 

Held at the Sheraton Palo Alto Hotel, the luncheon included Palo Alto Mayor Sid Espinosa as Master of Ceremonies, with keynote speaker Professor William Damon discussing “Purpose and Positive Youth Development.” Professor Damon has written 18 books on education and human development, and is the Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence and a Professor of Education at Stanford University. 

The event also included a video of YCS youth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpbkvfIpPSE), who discussed what they have gained from being a part of the organization and what they liked about it. Table centerpieces were made by students in YCS Fellows programs, representing service as the gateway to a garden of positive values, skills, experiences and relationships. 

YCS Executive Director Leif Erickson spoke about the contributions these participating youth have made in their local community, noting, “The story of YCS demonstrates to our young people every day that they are not alone – that they are surrounded in good will and mutual respect in a human network of people of all ages – by educators, parents, neighbors and friends like all of you.” 

More than 175 YCS donors, government and community partners, and youth parents attended the event. Notably, representatives for California State Senator Joe Simitian (District 11), California State Assemblymember Rich Gordon (District 21), and Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss (District 5) were on hand. Representatives from the Palo Alto Unified School District, the participating schools and City Council members also attended.  

The event, first of its kind hosted by YCS, was a great success. It provided the organization an opportunity to thank its supporters throughout the years, as well as invite others to contribute to its mission.