Savio House |

ReCap. Heads Up!

Good day friends! First and foremost, we at Youth On Record and Flobots.org would like to extend to anyone reading this a warm thank you for your interest in what we do. We have had an incredibly busy summer doing all the things that it takes to run a program such as ours. We are so inspired by those we serve and work and look forward to the future we are creating together.

We are so fortunate to share our lives with so many incredible people and the daily events that these folks inspire lead to experiences that shape who we are becoming as, not only as individuals, but as productive members of our community. The connections we have made through Youth On Record affirm and support our mission to help others, and for this we are most grateful. Particularly, we are excited to navigate the logistics of a long term working relationship with each of the residential treatment centers with whom we are partnered. New times demand innovation and together we hope to exhibit the very characteristics we wish to instill in the students we serve.

Here are some of the highlights of the past month, as it has been a busy one:

This past week we exposed close to one-hundred youth to the world of music production at the Sunnyside Music Festival in the Highland’s area of North Denver. It was a fantastic event featuring local music, art, as well as many activities for the area’s young people. Youth On Record and Flobots.org is proud to be a beneficiary of one of the many charitable donations made by the Sunnyside Music Festival.

: Sunnyside Music Festival

Youth On Record students are writing a monthly article in the Colorado Music Buzz Magazine. CMB is a Denver staple, informing the public on everything music related, while highlighting music's dynamic nature. Check out what our students and other great minds have to say about how music effects our lives.
Flobots.org and Youth On Record are proud to announce the beginning of our first program outside the boarders of Colorado. Youth On Record-Alaska began programming this week at the Haven House in Homer, Alaska. Cody Davidson heads the ship in the mighty North and we look forward to the challenges and successes we will inevitably encounter. Go get ‘em Cody, we are so proud of you!
Devereux Cleo Wallace hosted the first ever Youth On Record “recording night” this past week. Recording night is an opportunity for students to record lyrics and reflects the ongoing attempts of us, and those with whom we work, to establish a working schedule that optimizes our student's chances of success in our program. This is also an opportunity for those not in the class, but who have shown consistent progress in their treatment, to partake in some of what Youth On Record has to offer.

: Recording Night, Devereux Cleo Wallace

This month Youth On Record represented Flobots.org at the Green Route Festival in the Larimer district of Denver. This was an opportunity for us to showcase our program among many of the progressive, green businesses of this great city. Local music and food was also featured and contributed to the good times. Thank you to all our neighbors and we cherish the relationships that events like this reinforce.
The Shiloh House of Denver invited Youth On Record to present what we do with their students at the September all-campus assembly. It was an opportunity for us to highlight each of our Shiloh student’s music and explain our program. We have worked with three of the five Shiloh campuses, so it was also an opportunity to reunite with some folks from our recent past. Thank you to the Shiloh Home for their warm welcome and continuing commitment to helping us help their students.

We need to mention that part of the reality of working with our specific population is that all of those with whom we work leave our program. Although we often contribute to the success of their treatment and their leaving is frequently an indication of this success, it is never the less difficult to see them go and we very rarely have a chance to say good bye. So, on behalf of all those with whom we work good-bye and congratulations.

Finally, the annual fundraiser of Flobots.org is rapidly approaching. This year the event will feature many of the best local musicians bowling and performing with members of our community. Check out all the details at our website!

Thanks again for everybody’s support over the past few months and we look forward to moving forward with all of you!

Special Guest: Soul Daddy

by Aaron

Today we welcomed Alan Brooks aka 'Soul Daddy' into the Savio House classroom to teach a lyrics and songwriting workshop with the young students there. He spoke about the realities and ins and outs of the music industry, and we circled up and wrote a hilarious song as a class. Alan does a great job with the kids, and we were lucky to have him in the classroom. Thanks Soul Daddy.

Our First Setback and Therefore Our Greatest Opportunity to Date!

Savio House - Denver, Colorado

May 5th, 2010 Week Two, Lesson One/Two

This was a tough one. We arrived early in order to test the program and access the sample bank, for we were unable to do this the previous week. We purchased headphone splitters and extra headphones in order to accommodate all fourteen students. We logged on to the computers and began the testing, only having a few minutes to get this accomplished before the students were due to arrive. It was not to be. Due to all eight of the computers running off a single server, there was latency in each of the audio samples. We troubleshooted this for a few minutes but realized very quickly that we would be unable to move forward and would have to cancel the class. We met the students on their way to the classroom and, after explaining the situation to the staff, addressed the students. They were fantastically understanding, although it was apparent they were most disappointed. We spoke for about five minutes, assuring them that we would be back and explaining to them how this was to be done. We asked that if the program was important to them, recognizing that the students here had not even worked for a moment with the program, that they ask for their program to help us garnish the resources that we would need to work together. The students were very understanding and seemed to grasp the reality of what we were explaining. We need ten used laptops in order to work with these guys- there is no greater motivation then their disappointment. Its time to fund-raise!!!

Working in Downtown Denver!

Savio House - Denver, Colorado

April 28th, 2010 Week One, Lesson One

We drove the few minutes to the Savio House and waited at the door to the building with great anticipation. We had been working with contacts for this program for a couple of weeks now, and now stood at the front door with equipment in hand. We had a bit of anxiety for we had not tested the software and the sample bank ourselves, rather leaving this to the IT staff at the Savio House. We were also very excited because this was a older demographic than we had recently been working with, and the population for which the program was written. These kids were also from our neighborhood!

When the students entered there were fourteen. We were encouraged at the initial response to our program and were anxious to get started (the large number of students also presented us with an opportunity to implement the classroom protocol designed for when the ratio of students to computer is two to one). Unfortunately we were unable to access the program or the sample bank on the computers, so we adjusted our approach, much as we had done the first week at Shiloh House in Longmont- using the overhead projector only and stretching the introductions and the presentation/first lesson, forgoing the students using the computers individually altogether. This was not optimal, we thought, although we had concluded that the adaptations made in the previous week generally worked to our benefit: the students being focused in a single direction, that of the overhead screen rather than individually on the computer; we, the instructors, leading the class from beginning to end; and the students not being overwhelmed by us, the new information, and the navigation of the program on an individual level. However here, with this population, we thought they would grasp the information a bit quicker, due to their age, and wanted to get them using the program sooner than later with the hopes of peaking their interest. We resorted to using just the projector screen and doing the whole lesson in conjunction with them. It worked very well again and the students were very excited at the prospect of making their own music the following week. This begs the question whether we should approach each first lesson in this manner? Having the student's direct attention the whole lesson allowed us to establish ourselves as the leaders because we were demonstrating our knowledge of the program and music making at each moment.

The lesson was originally to be an hour and a half long but was only an hour, for we did not want to overload the students with too much information without providing them the opportunity to exercise what they had learned individually. We really look forward to next week with these guys. We left the class most encouraged. This is going to be a great group to work with and learn from!