H4G had another record year, resulting in 5 graduations. Those long term relationships are evident as several college students return with follow-up questions. In the last year, Horizons4Girls continued making a difference for MANY of our young women. Horizons4Girls has taught almost 1,500 hours of life skills that include skills such as cooking, family budgeting and sewing. Horizons students and mentors spent over 200 hours gardening. Horizons has spent a total of over 3,500 hours on social skills that include communications, healthy skills, anger management, and even leadership skills. Horizons mentors and tutors have spent almost 2,000 hours helping students with study skills and homework assignments including a session with the LTC portable electronics classroom as it returned to visit them at FCC, and over 70 field trips. Job shadowing experiences continue to grow, giving students the opportunity for on the job experiences.
One of the highlights of the work with students includes over 3,000 hours of community service, working at festivals such as Riverfest and the Sheboygan Come Together Festival ~ where we served over 250 Ethnic Ice Cream Sundaes (thanks to sponsorship by Culver’s). Students also worked at Triathlons, Marathons and various community events ~ and of course our Masters Gallery 5K to stop bullying. Monthly, students visited assisted living residents. Always a hit is Horizons4Girls’ annual Christmas cookie delivery to Rocky Knoll, this past Christmas delivering 74 dozen cookies, room to room.
The result of these long-term relationships between mentors and students resulted in 5 additional graduations, totally 37 graduations in the 7+ years of Horizons4Girls. Successes this year also included: an additional successful college enrollment, over 2 dozen successful job applications, additional internships and even our peer to peer mentoring group growing.
All this is made possible by 12 certified mentors with various college degrees, dozens of presenters and numerous volunteers from a variety of sources. Mentors continue to take additional training including certification in SBIRT from WI Department of Education; and for one mentor a BA degree nearing completion in Social Services. Those community members come from across Sheboygan County, sharing their various gifts and talents. More information can be found at horizons4girls.com.
Respectfully Submitted,
Char Pachniak
Founder, CEO
Addendum: Immediate needs would be a replacement for a 12 year old lap top in the H4G office, a canopy for our outside appearances, or on going needs such as gas and food/snack cards, or as always cash donations that are used for programing expenses. All donations are tax deductible as H4G is a non-profit organization, 100% staffed by trained, degreed volunteers. For more information: info@horizons4girls.com, 920-254-1584, www.horizons4girls.com
