Today is Character Day 2017!

Today, there are now over 130,000 Character Day events (in universities, K-12 schools, companies, libraries, homes, and more) happening in 119 countries! It will be an amazing day of millions of perspectives and global thinking around one theme: the importance of developing character.

Character Day (4th annual this year) is a global event for people to screen films on the topic of science as it relates to character development. Events are happening in everything from K-12 school districts, to universities including UCBerkeley, Harvard, and MIT, to The U.S Airforce, to companies like Intel, to individual families across the country and world, all engaging in conversation about the importance of developing character (qualities like empathy, curiosity, grit, humility, bravery, social responsibility, and more). Participants review printed materials and resources for discussions linked globally online about their own character, who they are, who they would like to be, and how to develop these character strengths, based on evidence-based research.

Character Day was created in 2014 by Tiffany Shlain, the co-founder of the non-profit Let it Ripple: Mobile Films for Global Change, founder of the Webby Awards, and the co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, to launch a global premier of the short film The Science of Character, which explores the social science and neuroscience behind character development. Shlain and Let it Ripple produced Character Day, and invited schools and organizations around the world to premier the film and discuss its ideas about character development all on the same day via a simultaneous online video conversation. There were over 1500 events in 31 country on March 14, 2014. The State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs also selected The Science of Character to be part of their American Film Program.

STEAM Education Thrives for Carver Kids After School

Science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) skills are in high demand among today’s workers, and one of the best ways to equip future employees with these skills is to start early. Carver programs help Norwalk students with these skills. After-school is a vital part of the solution for bringing more educational opportunities to kids, particularly for low-income kids and for kids who are in underserved populations. This study from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation found that 70 percent of students who participated in after-school programs such as those offered by Carver experienced positive gains in those subjects.

The study found that 80 percent of students reported a positive gain in their science career knowledge, 78 percent said their interest in science had increased, 72 percent reported an increase in their perseverance and critical thinking skills and 73 percent reported an increase in the personal belief that he or she can do well and succeed at science.

The WeR1 Voice initiative involves every discipline within the STEAM acronym. Presently, WeR1 will be transformed into a song that will be professionally produced and distributed worldwide. Read all about the project at the crowdfunding site The Impact Vine that made this wonderful project possible.

Many area companies, volunteers and donors make STEAM education possible at Carver, and for this we are deeply grateful.

 The Charlotte Naomi Horblit Technology Center at the Carver Community Center

Remembering 9.11.01

Sunday, September 10th is ADL's VOICES Concert!

WE ARE 67% OF OUR GOAL AT THE IMPACT VINE!

CLICK HERE TO THE LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WE R 1 CAMPAIGN AT THE IMPACT VINE!

Help us complete the campaign to produce our We R 1 Song!

Happy Labor Day!

Labor Day: What it Means

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

Labor Day Legislation

Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From these, a movement developed to secure state legislation. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

Founder of Labor Day

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold."

But Peter McGuire's place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.

The First Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

VIDEO: Carver kids are back to AFTER-school!

Giving Voice to Fuel Change: Novelette Peterkin included in FCCF Celebration of Black History Month

See the entire article here.

Giving Voice to Fuel Change: Celebrating Black Philanthropy Month in Fairfield County

AUG 29, 2017

• NEWS & PRESS

Photo: Les Treize, a Bridgeport-based giving circle, gives back to the community by awarding scholarships to African-American youth.

August is globally recognized as Black Philanthropy Month – a time to celebrate the collective power of African-American communities and their allies to transform lives through the power of giving, and to raise awareness to inspire and strengthen this work.

It’s a conversation that is deeply meaningful in Fairfield County, where growing disparity between wealth and poverty have created the nation’s largest opportunity gap. In the face of this challenge, many African-American philanthropists are actively investing their time, talent and treasure to build more equitable, inclusive neighborhoods and address the most pressing needs of our communities.

We are grateful to not only these featured African-American philanthropists, but the many others working in our communities to break the trajectory of poverty, increase access to quality education, create pathways to careers and build up Fairfield County as a place where every individual has the opportunity to thrive.

MEET THREE AFRICAN-AMERICAN PHILANTHROPISTS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY

Novelette Peterkin

Executive Director,
The Carver Foundation of Norwalk, Inc.

As the executive director of the Carver Foundation of Norwalk, a Connecticut nonprofit that is the city’s largest private provider of afterschool and summer programs, Novelette Peterkin is committed to partnering with both parents and public schools to “build lifetime achievers.” She is a member of the National Black MBA Association, has served as a panelist for the Norwalk Chamber of Commerce Leadership Institute and the Fairfield Leadership Development Roundtable, and received the Women of Distinction Award in 2013 from the Darien YWCA.

“I am passionate about giving every advantage to the most disadvantaged youth in Norwalk today. I can only hope that this important work will contribute in some small way to gradual social change tomorrow. As a Jamaican immigrant who came to the United States as a child, you might assume my passion arises from my ethnic heritage. It does not. I am just as passionate for the success of our Hispanic youth, and white youth, and Asian youth, as I am for our black young people. The alignment of my passion and purpose, and how I sustain that passion day-in and day-out, depends on my honoring and responding in-kind to the passion my students have for embracing Carver’s mission of Building Lifetime Achievers.

Our work to help close the achievement gap in Norwalk is financially under-valued and too often ignored as an impossible dream that no other city of Norwalk’s size and diversity has ever achieved. The transformative potential of giving is witnessed in the lives of Carver kids every day. Generous and believing people and institutions such as Fairfield County’s Community Foundation are changing Norwalk, if not society, from the inside out. I have the privilege of witnessing this transformation every day. We can absolutely close the achievement gap in Norwalk. Given the wealth in Fairfield County, the excellence of our teachers, and most importantly, the capacity of our young people to overcome serious challenges to achieve their dreams, Norwalk is the nation’s best chance at being the first to finally close the achievement gap and much more. Generous and even sacrificial giving is essential to make this happen. Giving already, each day, changes lives and is already influencing positive change for generations to come. That is the power and promise of giving.”

~ Novelette Peterkin

Welcome Back to School, Carver!