Volunteer of the Week!

Last week, Christine Gruhn was named our volunteer of the week! Christine has been volunteering since January of this year. She is a teacher at Sacramento Waldorf School. She heard about The GreenHouse from school when Waldorf started making the plans for The Oasis Games. Christine decided to get involved a littler earliar and wanted to volunteer on a regular basis. Christine played a major role during the Oasis Games. She helped out with the children every day. She helped make sure there were games and activities everyday for the children. All the children loved the new songs, crafts, and games they got to be a part of that week. They especially loved making smoothies. Christine has been a great asset to The GreenHouse and we appreciate her expertise in education! Thank you for everything! The GreenHouse is so glad that you are a part of our team!

We have two Volunteers of the Week!!!

This week we had two Volunteers of the Week; Malcolm Wheeler and Lisa Haydon!
Malcolm served as a summer VISTA this past summer and has been faithfully volunteering Evergreen and R4 every week. Malcolm lives in the apartments and is always flexible and is willing to come and help when the any program if we are under staffed. Thanks Malcolm!

Here is a little information about Malcolm:

How long have you been a part of or volunteering at The GreenHouse and with what programs?
Too long to remember. I help out with R4, Oasis, summer, and holiday programs.

Words to live by (personal quote or advice for living the good life)
"In the end they'll judge me anyway....so whatever".

In a nutshell, describe your career path since high school.
Chaotic

What made you decide to volunteer at The GreenHouse Center?
I live here in the community and I've known a lot of there kids since they were "babies" so I want all of these kids to have a positive role model and to know its not a bad thing to be a nerd or a geek.

Describe what you do in just three words.
Love, play, guide

What do you love about your job?
I love seeing kids from my community grow and prosper and knowing that they have somewhere safe to go after school.

In three sentences or less, convince someone that The GreenHouse is a great place to volunteer. The GreenHouse is a great place to volunteer because you get to work with an awesome group of kids and see them grow into young adults.

What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were younger?
I wish I could take everything I know now and use it when I was younger.

Lisa Haydon has been volunteering at The GreenHouse for two years. She started in the summer camp with the elementary students. During the school year, she helped the teens in the after school program. This year, Lisa has been helping with the elementary after school program! Lisa, thank you for all the energy and time you put in with our students. You are a great role model to these children!

3rd Grade field trip!

On friday, Emily and I took the 3rd graders on their field trip! We took them to Old Sacramento and had a fun and educational scavenger hunt! This was a great trip that the students loved. They learned about the pony express, hardware stories, trains, and the theatre from the past. They were particlarly interested in learning about the school house and how diffrerent school is now. We were also able to aboard the Delta King, a riverboat that is a hotel and resturant. The kids were very impressed by the size and were able to see the river up close. The students were able to go into a candy store and try some free candy samples. They loved going around the store and choosing their two pieces.  And of course, at the end of the day, the students got to choose between ice cream or a bag of candy! Here are some pictures of our awesome fieldtrip!!

Here they got to ride a simulation of what it would be like to be a part of the pony express!

Enjoying the fun trains at Old Sac!

 Here, they got to explore the one room school house.

 Enjoying thier much loved ice cream that they earned for finishing the scavenger hunt!

One students working hard to find all the answers to the scavenger hunt!


















Just as a reminder, we are having Study Buddy check ins all this week! See you this week!!

This week at the GreenHouse!

This week, Evergreen had their first fieldtrip of the year. We took our 2nd graders out to Mcdonald's. They got to have a happy meal, ice cream, and got to play on the play equipment. The 2nd graders had a blast and continued to say that this was "the BEST day ever". It was great to spend some quality time with the students because it was a much smaller group. Here are a few pictures of our fun trip!

Our Volunteer of the Week is Dave Young. Dave has been volunteering at the after school program since 2010. Before that, he volunteered at special events that The GreenHouse put on. Dave also was a mentor for two years for two boys. Thanks you Dave for all the time you have put into our students!

Volunteer of the Week!

This week's volunteer of the week is Victor Blanco! He came during the Evergreen Christmas party and helped make gingerbread houses with the kids. Since then, Victor has been volunteering at The GreenHouse multiple times a week while he has been on winter break at Sacramento State. We are so glad that you are impacting the kids at Evergreen and R4. Here's some information about Victor so you can get to know him a little better!

Volunteer of the Week Interview

How long have you been a part of or volunteering at The GreenHouse and with what programs?

Not very long actually, I just started in early January. I started volunteering there because of all the free time I had with school being in recess.

Words to live by (personal quote or advice for living the good life)

"The greatest sin of our time is not the few who have destroyed but the vast majority who sat idly by." MLK Jr.

In a nutshell, describe your career path since high school.

Went to Butte College to get my college general education done then moved to Sacramento to attend CSUS and get a degree in Physical Therapy and changed that to Social Work

What made you decide to volunteer at The GreenHouse Center?

I understand many of the places these kids come from and the motivation and drive that they need. I needed that as a youth and so I wanted to bring it to them.

When you’re not volunteering, what do you do? What extracurricular activities are you involved in?

I go to CSUS to get my degree in Sociology and I hang out with my 4 roommates. Mainly I hang out with my awesome and beautiful girlfriend who many of you may know. (Deborah)

Describe what you do in just three words.

Sacrifice, Enlighten, Debate

What do you love about your job?

My job as a volunteer or at work? Well at work I love that it is so easy and that I have the opportunity to talk to so many people. As a volunteer I love helping the kids see their potential.

In three sentences or less, convince someone that The GreenHouse is a great place to volunteer.

By volunteering at the Greenhouse you have a great opportunity to help out youth that may otherwise be marginalized and forgotten. You get to meet great kids and young adults that will be challenging but worth the effort, not only for you but for them as well.  The GreenHouse is a great place to volunteer because of the great things they do for the community and for the future voices of that community.

What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were younger?

That the world is a dark and sometimes sad place but with God on your side all things are lit up and joyful. He never lets you go and will always be there in your darkest and saddest times.

Volunteer of the Week!

Our volunteer of the week was awarded to Pam Fuhrman! Pam has been volunteering at Evergreen since September 2011. Pam has continually blessed The Greenhouse with her talent of finding good deals. Pam is very generous with her time and resources! We are soo glad that you are a part of the deveopment of our students! Thank you for all your hard work.

Our winter season

 We have taken a break from the after school program for the holiday season. We asked all our volunteers to help support every child in our after school program by buying a christmas gift. This is about 35 students. In a matter of days, you guys all helped support every child involved in the GreenHouse. We had Christmas celebrations for each program. At Evergreen, we had a group of students come in and play Christmas games and help make gingerbread houses. Club 56 (Our bible study for 5th and 6th graders) put on a great play that told the story of Jesus' birth and sang a few Christmas carols. After all the celebration, the students opened their gifts from you( our awesome volunteers!). They were all surprised and left with smiles on their faces. It was a great day for the Evergreen students!

R4, opened their gifts on their last day of the after school program. All the teens were very surprised to get gifts from their study buddies. All of them were every excited to receive their gifts. They had a separate Christmas party that L.I.T. put on for Oasis (Our bible study for midlle and high school age students) later that week.


We had a very successful winter event on December 16th and 17th. This was the second year that we had Melvin's Hope Christmas Store for the families of River Garden Estate, Natomas Court, and American River Village in Natomas. We served 114 families in the course of two days! We had over 900 toys to sell to the families and included free gift wrapping. We had an enormous amount of support from numerous place to receive donated toys for our families. We had toys from barbies, transformers, basketballs to Ugg shoes and jewelry.  We also had three Christmas trees donated by Southwest Airlines and two gently used girl bikes as raffles for the event. We had a great support from our members of the Parent Action Team that weekend. We had 14 parents help set up, volunteer in the store, and tear down. What a blessing to have so many parents involved in the Melvin's Hope Christmas Store! They have been a dedicated group of individuals that have been meeting bi-weekly to discuss issues of the community that they want to see change, event planning and helping volunteer for the actual event! The Greenhouse could not be doing what we do without the support of our Parent Action Team! Parents put in 124 hours into Melvin's Hope Christmas Store! Thank you!

Right before we ended our programs for the year, our volunteer of the week was awarded to Felipe Calixto! He is one our youngest volunteers. He is a senior at Inderkum High School and has been volunteering through Evergreen at The GreenHouse since September 2011. He has been a great volunteer. He always comes on time and is great with the kids! He has been dedicated to The GreenHouse and has been great as a homework helper. We are sad to say, but Felipe moved farther from the GreenHouse and is not able to continue to volunteer for the remainder of the year. Thank you Felipe for all your hard work and we will miss you!