ELP Message Board

ONEin3 Boston accepting applications for Advisory Council

2009-06-19T15:14:46Z

ONEin3 Boston is now accepting applications for 15-20 spots on the ONEin3 Boston Mayor’s Advisory Council.
ONEin3 Boston serves the one-third of Boston’s population that is between the ages of 20 and 34. The program connects Boston’s young adults with resources related to home buying, business development, professional networking, and civic engagement.
The ONEin3 Mayor’s Advisory Council was created to find out about, research and recommend solutions to the problems facing Boston’s ONEin3 population. Through the Advisory Council, ONEin3 and Mayor Menino hope to improve the quality-of-life for young people living in the City of Boston.

Please return your completed application (http://www.tinyurl.com/ONEin3Council) to Devin dot Cole dot BRA at CityofBoston dot gov no later than July 1st.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact ONEin3 at Devin dot Cole dot BRA at CityofBoston dot gov.

Social Evening Event Announcements from Francios Fils-Amie (‘07) - francoisfilsaime@yahoo.com

2009-06-04T16:11:29Z

The first event is First Fridays which is June 5. Event will be held at Loft 44 in Randolph from 10PM to 2AM.

The second event is call the “Black Attire Party” on Friday, June 12 at Loft 44 in Randolph from 9PM to 2AM.

Anyone from ELP can email Francios directly to RSVP for any of these events and it is free before 11pm: francoisfilsaime at yahoo dot com

Support Big Sister of Greater Boston! Fundraiser on 6/11/09!

2009-05-27T09:48:58Z

I would like to personally invite all of you young professionals to the Urban Beach Party, hosted by the Young Professionals Board of Big Sister (of which I am a member). What better way to welcome the season than with food catered by Legal Sea Foods, drinks from Sam Adams and Barefoot Wine & Bubbly, and dancing to a sizzling summer soundtrack spun by Rebel the Ambassador? An exciting raffle and silent auction will feature Red Sox tickets, theater tickets, a golf outing, and much more!
DATE: Thursday, June 11, 2009
TIME: 6:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
LOCATION: Exchange Conference Center on the Waterfront in Boston
Tickets are $75 and include all food and drink for the evening.
Visit http://www.bigsister.org and click on the Urban Beach Party under “Upcoming Events” on the left to get your ticket now…hurry, only 100 tickets are left! Tell ‘em JoseAlberto sent you

Linkedin Alumni Group

2009-05-26T16:06:56Z

Hi,
I have created a group in Linkedin for ELP Alumni

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1979452

Regards
Chendil

EMC employee in need of bone marrow transplant - post from Tanya Laughlin ‘09, EMC

2009-05-19T10:03:11Z

On Friday we circulated word through the global EMC community and beyond about Nick Glasgow, a 28-year-old EMC employee in California who, in the span of just weeks, has been diagnosed with Leukemia and now is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant. Over the weekend, the compassion of the EMC family was abundant as hundreds of EMCers responded to this plea—either by getting tested as potential donors, passing the information along to friends and family members, or just offering their prayers, personal experiences, and asking what they could do. When word reached Cisco, a company larger than EMC that has been a strong partner in the marketplace for years, Cisco people also sprang into action.
Nick’s mother, Carole Wiegand, also an EMC employee, has expressed her and Nick’s deepest gratitude at the outpouring of help and support. But the race to find a qualified donor is at a critical stage, so I am sending this update with more specifics on how a potential donor can expedite a possible match. Please feel free to circulate this message beyond EMC (social media vehicles were used to rapidly spread word about Nick throughout the weekend).
Here are the essential facts:
—Any person whose ethnic background is a mix of Asian and Caucasian, and is in good health with no history of cancer or major illness, and is between the ages of 18 and 60, is a potential donor for Nick. Expanding on the initial information, one does not need to be 75% Caucasian and 25% Asian—any potential mix could work. While the most likely match would be from a person who is 75% Caucasian and 25% Japanese, it is absolutely possible that other combinations of Caucasian-Asian background in different proportions could work. The Asian background should be Sino-Asian, rather than Indo-Asian. Finding an ideal match with all of Nick’s markers is very difficult, and we do not want to exclude any potential donors.
—Go to the “Be The Match” National Marrow Donor Program at http://www.marrow.org/. Rather than ordering a test kit (time is too critical for that), read the facts about donating and then you can register yourself and enter your zip code at http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/Join_in_Person/index.html to find drives in your area in the next few days. If there is not a local drive in your area within the next few days, please call one of the labs listed and request a time to drop in for urgent testing. (These instructions apply to people in the US. Other countries have similar programs.) People who join the registry can help any person, not just Nick.
—The test is a simple cheek swab. The actual donation can be a blood draw or a more complex procedure, which would have some side-affects from which people bounce back quickly. This link has facts about the procedural aspects of bone marrow donation:
http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/Myths_&_Facts_about_Marrow_Don/index.html. If a qualified donor is identified and medical or travel costs are an issue, this will be taken care of.
—Special drives for Nick are also being arranged for the next few days. We are looking at possible locations where a drive could facilitate good numbers of potential donors (San Francisco/San Jose area, the Boston/Hopkinton area, and Orlando, where EMC World is taking place this week). Carol Gillespie at the Asian American Donor Program (AADP) is providing testing if you are located in the Bay Area in California (all ethnic minorities and Caucasians wishing to join will be asked to pay a portion of their testing costs, $25). Please contact AADP directly at 1-800-593-6667 and speak to anyone on the staff if you are local, to have your testing done more quickly .
—If you get tested, it is important that you expedite the process by sending an email to all three people in the cc line on this message:
Carole Wiegand (wiegand_carole at emc dot com), Nick’s mom and fellow EMC employee

Stacy Morales (morales_stacy at emc dot com), a friend and EMC colleague of Nick and Carole who is helping to coordinate all this

Carol Gillespie (carol at aadp dot org) at the Asian American Donor Program

In the email, include your registration ID number, the location where you were tested, and testing date. The reason for this is that the national database usually takes a few weeks to be updated with a new potential donor’s test results. For Nick, time is of the essence. They will be expediting these samples for Nick so his doctors will be able to urgently retrieve possible matches.

Thank you to all who have tried to help and expressed concern. I would like to close with this message from Stacy Morales:

“Thank you does not begin to express the gratitude that Carole and Nick have for you all right now. You have given this family hope, and quite possibly, the gift of life.”

Message from Maria Dominguez Gray - State Budget Cuts impacting youth programs

2009-05-18T10:31:02Z

Below is information about the State budget cuts that are impacting youth programming and steps you can take to help out. As I mentioned, funding to youth programs not to mention schools and emergency services has been taken to virtually zero which will have a catastrophic impact on so many. The basic message we are trying to encourage is that we’re ok with reasonable revenue increases if it means keeping these critical services.

Phone calls from outside the Boston area and from folks in the business community are particularly helpful in demonstrating a united front for the future of our youth. I’m out of the country for the next couple of months, so I’ve left the original emails of other organizers below should you have further questions. Thanks for any support you can give. Peace and service, Maria

—————Forwarded message—————
From: YWA
From: Lewis Finfer

What to do in the next 10 days (with some of your time!) to influence the State Budget decisions affecting budget line items you care about.

—besides calling about the programs, remember to speak up for the need for passing taxes so they have money to restore some of the budget cuts—see also the 3 point ask to make of Senators recopied below

1. Tuesday May 12—Thursday May 14: Asking Senator to be amendment sponsors and co-sponsors Calls to Senators asking them to be the lead sponsor or co-sponsor of the budget amendments for the youth violence prevention programs that are your priorities (see list and line items below re DPH, Shannon, YouthWorks, School to Career, ASOST, Mentoring).

2. Weds. May 13—Friday May 15—Asking Senators to be amendment co-sponsors We will let you know as soon as we have a Senator willing to be the lead sponsor of the amendment and then you can specifically ask other Senators to commit to being a co-sponsor. They know how to do this which is for their office to call the office of the Senator who is the lead sponsor.

Following are the key amendments:
Senator McGee’s amendment to restore the After School and Out-of-School Time (ASOST) Quality Grant - 7061-9611- to $4M, the House budget level, from $2M in SWM.
Senator Chang-Diaz’s amendment to restore the Youth Violence Prevention Grant at DPH - 4590-1506 - to $3.5M. If this amendment does not pass, the YVP grant will not exist in FY10.
Senator Timilty’s amendment to restore the Shannon Gang Prevention Grant - 8100-0111.
Senator Rosenberg’s amendment to restore the Mentoring Matching Grants
- 7061-9634.
Senator Chang-Diaz’s amendment to restore the YouthBuild Summer Jobs Program for At-Risk Youth - 7002-0112.
Senator Chang-Diaz’s amendment to restore the School to Career Connecting Activities Program - 7027-0019.

Find your Senator at http://www.wheredoivotema.com, listed as “Sen. in General Court.” Once you have contacted your Senator’s office, of if you have any questions, please contact Julie Albert at jalbert at massafterschool dot orgso we can follow up on your call. MAP will continue to keep you updated and will let you know when the amendments will be debated. Thank you for your advocacy efforts and continued commitment to children, youth and families.

3. Monday May 18-Friday May 22 Senate debate and vote on the budget; asking Senators to work for the passage of the amendments

Continue calls to Senators asking them to work for passage of new taxes needed to lessen the budget cuts and for the amendments to restore the funding to programs that have been cut and name your program priorities.

4. Monday May 18 at 12:00, site to be announced Organize people to attend State House rally in support of the new taxes necessary to prevent huge budget cuts and for the programs that need state funding.

**See below for what 3 points and the question to ask of State Senators in phone calls and further background information.

***Please think also about staff, board, members, and clients who you could organize to make these calls too and ask allied organizations to think about whether they can do that too.

Dear Colleagues,

I will first talk about the “ask” to make to your state senators on state budget cuts and taxes, then give the background politics that informs that “ask”, and give you back up information to use with your organization and with legislators.

Our next Conference Call meeting to assess where we are and plan next steps will be Wednesday May 15 at 5:00 PM and be a short update and strategy discussion of probably 15-20 minutes. Conference Call information will be sent next week.

I. What to ask State Senators between now and Wednesday—these 3 points

1. We know the state has a huge deficit because of the recession, but even in these hard economic times, we support new taxes to lessen the amount of budget cuts you will have to make.

2. We care about these programs which are crucial to our communities ______.

(you decide how many and which programs to bring up based on your organization’s priorities—DPH Youth Violence Prevention Program, Shannon Anti-Gang Violence Program,YouthWorks Teen Jobs, School to Career Connecting Activities/Teen Jobs, After School Out of School Time Grant Program, Mentoring Program)

3. Will you sponsor or cosponsor a budget amendment to restore these programs if they are not funded or seriously cut in the Senate Ways and Means budget released on Wednesday?

II. The Politics

1. The House budget included a 1.25% sales tax increase and was based on the state taking in $1 billion more in revenue than it will actually now have.

2. So the Senate has to raise taxes even more than the House, just to be able to make no larger cuts than the House made and the House made some big cuts (like eliminating the DPH Youth Violence Prevention Program and cutting the Shannon program 50%).

3. The Senate leadership seems to have decided to put out the Senate Ways and Means budget