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NORWALK ECONOMIC
OPPORTUNITY NOW, Inc. |
98
South Main Street |
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NORWALK ECONOMIC
OPPORTUNITY NOW, Inc. |
98
South Main Street |
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RSVP
volunteers add warmth to the season
Throughout the warm summer months, members of the Retired &
Senior Volunteer Program of Southwestern CT were already
thinking of winter.
Stamford Advocate - December 9, 2011
Norwalk Citizen Online - Inside East Norwalk
Since the beginning of the program -- using six distribution sites within the city, twice each year -- NorwalkReads! has distributed more than 60,000 free books to more than 20,000 children. As an adjunct to the twice-yearly program, the East Norwalk Library maintains an ongoing distribution program through its Norwalk Reads! Children's Club. Parents enroll their children who receive a member "punch card," which entitles each child to receive two new and two slightly used books each month. Since its start a little more than a year ago, the NorwalkReads! Children's Club has grown to a membership of nearly 200 children. To get started, visit the library, complete a membership application to enroll your children and have them choose age-appropriate books of their choice.
For
information, call 203-838-0408, ext. 100, or email
mail@eastnorwalklibrary.org.
CONSUMER UNIVERSITY
October 13, 2011 - RSVP Receives the Volunteer Award at the
Norwalk Reads Award Ceremony
September 10, 2011 - Norwalk Hour
The Emergency Preparedness Awareness Project, coordinated by several local agencies in Norwalk is one of thousands of grassroots service projects to take place across the nation in honor of September 11. ...more
July 1, 2011 - Darien News
He
was selected from a group of exemplary volunteers statewide
to receive this award, named in honor of Cherry, long-time
director of the CT Senior Corps.
June 24, 2011 - Norwalk Citizen News
Although hampered by the extraordinary thunder-storms on Thursday, the sale, held in the Van Zilen Community Hall, was fairly well attended, with many of the fiction, non-fiction, children's books and other materials purchased by a steady stream of bargain hunters. The book sale, a labor-intensive, time-consuming effort was made that much easier due to the sup-port of nearly a dozen Retired & Senior Volunteer Program of Southwest Connecticut volunteers who helped the buyers with the purchases, kept a tally of the items sold and collected the money. RSVP volunteers demonstrate daily how seniors are a vital resource to help solve many of society's problems. The program offers them a chance to work in a project within the community that matches their values, passions, and skills. There are more than 400 volunteers who donated some 35,000 hours to more than 65 community agencies in lower Fairfield County. Although RSVP requires a volunteer to be at least 55 years of age, many volunteers continue to be active well into their 90s. Each Senior Corps program in Connecticut (of which RSVP is a member) was asked to nominate one of their volunteers for the Romero Cherry Senior Corps Volunteer Award. (Cherry was a long-time director of the CT Senior Corps, who passed away a couple of years ago.) Don Smith, who coordinates and participates in the East Norwalk Library's "D2R2 -- Dogs to Read to" and other library R.E.A.D. (Reading Education Assistance Dogs) programs and Healing Hounds visits to hospitals, was selected this year as the person who made an outstanding contribution to RSVP statewide. Smith was honored at a luncheon on Tuesday at the Gelston House, in East Haddam, at the annual meeting of the Connecticut Senior Service Corps Association. Senior Corps connects over 55 with the people and organizations that need them most. It helps them become mentors, coaches or companions to people in need, or contribute their job skills and expertise to community projects and organizations. Conceived during John F. Kennedy's presidency, Senior Corps currently links more than 500,000 Americans to service opportunities.
April 26, 2011
Norwalk Citizen News Now entering its third year, the nationally acclaimed East Norwalk Library’s "D2R2 – Dogs to Read to" program will be offering two weekly sessions for Norwalk Housing Authority (NHA) Children.
Starting last Tuesday, a group of children from the NHA Learning Centers, with Barry Dancer, its Director, met, for an hour, at the East Norwalk Library, picked a book of their choice and read to Brasil – a specially-trained R.E.A.D. (Reading Education Assistance Dog) Whippet. Similarly, on Fridays, also for an hour, a group of younger children, some with parents, from the NHA Early Childhood Education program will enjoy the same program experience. The East Norwalk library has held these programs, for the public, each Saturday for the past two years, and in addition to being fun, the experience of reading to dogs has been shown to help improve love of reading and reading improvement as well as develop social skills among the participants. "It is the success of the D2R2 Program," explains Danielle Truini, NHA Director of Learning Centers, "that prompted us to partner with the East Norwalk Library for these special sessions for NHA children. "The East Norwalk Library already participates with NHA as a distribution center for its twice-yearly city-wide NorwalkReads! free book distribution," continues Truini, "and enables an opportunity for young readers to participate in the program year-round." "D2R2-Dogs to Read to" started at the East Norwalk Library through the mutual efforts of the Norwalk RSVP (Retired Seniors Volunteer Program) and Don Smith, who, with his Whippet, Brasil, as part of Stamford Hospital’s Healing Hounds Outreach Program, enlisted a cadre of other "certified" dog owners to join D2R2 at the Library.
In
addition to choosing a book to read, each D2R2 participant
keeps the book they read, receives a Certificate of
Participation, and starting in April will be awarded special
prizes based upon the number of sessions they attend.
Last year, D2R2 at the East Norwalk Library was featured in
a special segment of Diane Sawyer’s ABC World News Tonight
where the reading-accomplishment progress of a program
participant was tracked during a 3-month period. And, the
program itself was funded, in part, by a contribution from
the Broad River Animal Hospital. Library “Friends” groups are organized to help provide support for programs and projects that may not otherwise be able to be offered for Library users and its community. Toward that end, organization meetings of the Friends of the East Norwalk Library were held to develop a structure for such an organization. The members of the initial group were brought together through the efforts of Norwalk’s R.S.V.P. (Retired Seniors Volunteer Program) for the purpose of mounting an East Norwalk Library Friend’s Book sale to be scheduled in the next few months. The initial work of the Friends will concentrate of the task of sorting and categorizing the hundreds of books to be made available to the public at the Book Sale. Anyone interested in joining the Friends and participating in such an effort should contact the Library in person, or call 203-838-0408 ext 100, or email mail@eastnorwalklibrary.org .
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Ian Arriaga, a participant in the NEON Child Development
Program, shows off his hat, scarf and mittens made by local
RSVP volunteers. 
Male
Senior Volunteer award. The award is part of a ceremony
presented by the Volunteer Center of Southwestern Fairfield
County for the 16th annual Stamford Volunteer Day at the
Harry Bennett Branch of the Ferguson Library in Stamford, CT
on Fri., Dec. 9, 2011. 
RSVP
receives Outstanding Senior Volunteer Group Award from the
Volunteer Center of Southwestern Fairfield Country at the
New Canaan Volunteer Recognition Awards, Tuesday April 26,
2011. Pictured are representatives of the RSVP Team , Mary
Malagisis, Gilda Lahey ,Mary Bennet, and RSVP Director Teri
Klein who presented the award.