ALIVE

Post by youth volunteer Melody M., age 14: We collected, sorted, and packed backpacks back in August-September 2020. After about 5-7 months, the backpacks were finally ready to be distributed! It was a surprisingly hot and sunny winter's day. We arrived at the elementary school in Hayward and there was already one student who was helping to unload the backpacks and materials. My mom, my sister, and I helped to unload the rest of the bags. I put up a sign that said, ALIVE on... it, and then I straightened the backpacks out. Around the elementary school, there were different wooden turtle statues and big, beautiful murals. The kids were given a time-frame of one hour to pick up the backpacks, and many of them came one-by-one. They were overjoyed to see the hard work that had been put into them, and they saw their new teachers for the first time in-person. Even though we all had face masks on, we could tell all of the students and teachers were ecstatic about this day. You can tell the kids treasured their gifts. We can't wait to hear which items are the students' favorites, and I can't wait to pack backpacks again next school year. I hope you will be able to come too.

As we share updates of what ALIVE has been up to, we are reminded of WHY we do what we do each day because of our vision and mission, and also HOW we are able to do it because of the support of our community. So as we approach the one-year mark of when our schools closed, we want to know what has made you feel ALIVE recently? There are joys and sorrows but these emotions are part of what makes us who we are. Learning and growing through the challenges have made us feel ALIVE.... - Our Mission Every child will see themselves as worthy and capable. Every child will learn how to embrace who they are, set meaningful goals, and acquire essential skills to make their goals a reality. Every child will be equipped to build their lifelong success story, their way. Our Vision Every child has the tools they need to succeed.

Being a kid is hard. Being unhoused is hard. Being an undocumented citizen in the US is hard. Being in the foster system is hard. Living through a pandemic is hard!... And our group of Oakland students is all joy. L always has something to share on camera. J likes eating snacks and talking about video games. M has an incredible vocabulary and mind for language. S wants everyone to add him on Roblox and types his username into the chat on Zoom. D always brings a little cousin along. So far I've only met the top of B's forehead, but we'll get there ! We have pets running on and off screen, family sounds in the background, little smiling faces popping in and out. And this past weekend I got to meet these little humans in person! What an exciting delivery day - One of our most consistently present students lives with her extended family. Her little cousin, who's probably around 4, comes to our Zoom classes each and every day. In addition to paying attention and participating herself, she also monitors her baby cousin's learning and gives him opportunities to chime in. Of course, we packed him a backpack too! - Rebecca, ALIVE Cofounder, Director of Developmental Learning

"When someone loves you, it's like having a blanket all around your heart." - Helen Fielding. June Bovenzi, an exceptional ALIVE volunteer, has loved children she has never met by sewing blankets for our ALIVE students. June, your blankets will bring warmth, comfort, and love to our students because they will know that their blanket was made for them with love. Thank you for this gift of warmth. Be like June and get involved: https://www.alivestudents.org/get-involved :)

"Would you rather run around the room 5 times or do 10 jumping monkeys? Ok, go!" And so, another class at ALIVE begins. We are having so much fun with our Hayward and Oakland students. Picture Kinder-6th grade kids spinning, jumping, and peering into their computer, ready for the next adventure. We're playing Granny Says, perfecting our Pillow Challenge moves, learning story structure and composing songs about corn dogs with our teaching partner, HipHop4Change. It's the best job in the world. As one 6th grader put it, "The whole class is just fun." It absolutely is.