On Saturday more than 90 youth descended upon the Nourish-FVCC Community Garden – led by fearless leaders from Montana Conservation Corps, Center for Restorative Youth Justice, Montana Academy, and Montana FoodCorps these youth joined together from around the Flathead Valley to get the Nourish-FVCC garden ready for growing, to create a school garden at Elrod Elementary, and to participate in wildly exciting crafts, games, and art projects.
Check out our Facebook page for some great photos of the day.
A huge thank you to Global Youth Service Day Sponsors, including: Montana Serve, Disney Friends of Change, Park Side Credit Union and the ipay2give campaign. Or course, an incredibly loud “woo hoo” for all of the amazing youth who spent their Saturday making the world a better place.
Stop by the community garden this summer (located behind the Arts and Technology Building on the FVCC Campus) to see CRYJ kiddos and staff in action this summer – planting, tending, and harvesting food for the Flathead Food Bank. Of course anyone who plays in the garden is encouraged to eat a delicious home-grown carrot or two – all while learning about growing food and supporting local projects that bring nutritious food to families in need.
Images and Voices: Youth Art Exhibit Recognizes Victims
Harper Lee once wrote “You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” As an opening quote in “To Kill a Mockingbird” it is a powerful reminder of the path to empathy and understanding.
In recognition of National Crime Victims Rights Week (April 22nd– 28th) the Center For Restorative Youth Justice (CRYJ) has offered this Youth Exhibit to the Flathead Community – focused on unfolding and uncovering the ripples caused by crime, and honoring the voices of those most impacted.
CRYJ’s programs work one-on-one with youth and victims of juvenile crime to ‘reweave the fabric’ of relationships (community, family, peers) in ways that promote true accountability, inspire connection, and increase community safety. Conversations with victims and community members allow youth to focus on what steps are needed to repair the real harm caused by their actions, and to create opportunities for victims and youth to move forward in positive ways that reconnect them to our community.
Description of Exhibit:
For this exhibit CRYJ youth participants worked to gather voices and perspectives in an attempt to discover not only how victimization and harm can
separates us as a community – but how we can use empathy and understanding to come together. When choosing to walk in another’s shoes the choice is made to listen to those who wish to be heard, and to see the truth in others who wish to be seen.
This exhibit is titled “Images and Voices: Road to Repair” and is built to be an interactive artistic piece where the observer also becomes a participant. The project encompasses real voices and images of local youth, as well as voices of victims – providing an opportunity for you as the community to view both the outside and inside experience of these two populations and to offer words, wishes, or hopes for healing and growth.
What do we do as victims of crime to move forward, to find safety and our voice when both feel so far away? What does the world say about teenagers? How do we exist in a world of stereotypes and external pressures while trying to hold on to some sense of who we are? One of the goals of this project was to interview teenagers about what other people (especially adults) think about them, and to describe the ‘inside person’. Youth participants were also asked to look through statements and quotes from real victims of youth crime in our community – broadening an understanding of the far reaching impacts a single decision can make on the world around us.
The goal of this exhibit is to honor voices – to create ways to repair and rebuild relationships. To step aside from judgment – to offer our hopes, to find the goodness in each other. To restore.
The Images and Voices: Road to Repair will be on display at FVCC from April 23rd through April 26th, in Colter Coffee from April 27th-May 27th, and in the Park Side Credit Union Whitefish Branch from May 28th – June 8th. We hope you will participate in this exhibit and encourage others to as well.
For more information about CRYJ’s Restorative Programming please visit our website at www.restorativeyouthjustice.org or give us a call (406) 257-7400.
Well, it’s about that time of year again, everybody, everywhere is getting ready for Global Youth Service Day (GYSD)! First established in 1988, Global Youth Service Day was made to mobilize youth around the world to improve their community. Today, GYSD is celebrated in over one-hundred countries and supports over three-thousand projects that work on both local and global issues.
This year, for GYSD, CRYJ will be partnering with Nourish the Flathead (NTF) and the Montana Conservation Core (MCC) on April 21st to help organize and improve the local community garden located at the Flathead Valley Community College. Over one-hundred youth volunteers from around the valley are anticipated to partake in the event. “While this project aims to engage youth from all demographics to work together and improve the garden,” Said Anders O., “It’s also aimed to help build a better community and combat against local food and hunger issues by educating youth and showing them what they can do to help solve this problem.”
Some activities during the day include: a mural painting, making bird feeders, garden bed preparation, making seed bombs, and more. For more information about Global Youth Service Day and what CRYJ and others are doing around Kalispell, you can visit www.GYDS.org and look on their map.
On March 24th, CRYJ staff and youth participants teamed up with the Montana Conservation Core (MCC) to help beautify the city of Kalispell, working together to remove graffiti and pick up trash. In total, nine students from CRYJ participated during the afternoon activity, while MCC provided four youth crew leaders to help with the project.
So why would these two seemingly unrelated organizations decide to partner up? “MCC provides a lot of things for CRYJ and vise versa” says Anders Olson, CRYJ’s Youth Connections Coordinator. “With a unique outside perspective, the members of the MCC can look at areas within Kalispell and shed a completely different light on them. What may be dull and boring to the youth can get revamped with how novel they are to MCC members.”
With enough people, the combined group divided into two parts, one to focus on the East side of Kalispell, and the other to focus on the West side. Each group focused on heavily neglected and vandalized areas within their respective parts of Kalispell. The east-group worked near the railroad tracks by the Super 1, and the west-group worked by a local hardware store and high school.
CRYJ is excited to partner with Park Side Credit Union for the iPay2Give campaign!
Between April 1st and June 30th of 2012 Park Side Credit Union and CRYJ will be partnering together for the iPay2Give campaign. CRYJ is thrilled to be a part of this important community partnership – bringing support and awareness to nonprofits through outreach and support!
You can make a donation to the important work that we do at CRYJ by simply making your loan payment through Park Side Credit Union! For all auto or recreational vehicle loans, Park Side will donate a portion of loan payment interest to five nonprofits including: Samaritan House, Nurturing Center, Glacier Park Fund, the Abby House and Violence Free Crisis Line, and CRYJ!
Visit Parkside’s website, swing into your local Park Side branch, or stop by CRYJ to learn more!
Yeah for local credit unions that make our community a better place!
Thanks to all of you who attended our CRYJ Movie Premier Night on November 15th. It was great see all our community partners and supporter and the movie was a big hit! Look for clips online soon.
The Center for Restorative Youth Justice (CRYJ) works with youth across the Flathead Valley to provide meaningful accountability processes and restorative community connections as an alternative to the traditional juvenile justice system. CRYJ works with youth offenders and with victims of juvenile crime in Flathead County – working to rebuild connection, trust, and community safety. “Beyond Repair: The CRYJ story” is a short film that tells the story of CRYJ from the youth’s perspective – stories of reflection, transformation, and the people and philosophies that make CRYJ’s restorative programming possible.
Please join CRYJ and the youth who directed and starred in this short film for a Red Carpet Premier on November, 15th. The red carpet will open at 6:30 in the KM Building Theater (2nd Floor) and festivities will run until 7:30pm. This event is free to the public.
CRYJ works with over 250 youth a year who are either currently involved, or are being actively diverted from, the traditional juvenile justice system. CRYJ’s programs are founded on the restorative justice philosophy – where justice resources are focused on determining who was harmed (vs. what law was broken), who is responsible (vs. placing blame), and what steps are needed to repair the harm (vs. inflicting punishment). CRYJ’s innovative programming results in reduced juvenile offense rates in our community. Without CRYJ programming, the likelihood that a youth will reoffend is about 33%. If a youth participates and completes a CRYJ restorative justice process the chances that they will reoffend is reduced to 13%. Attend the film premier on November 15th to learn more about CRYJ’s powerful programming, meet staff and agency partners, and celebrate the unveiling of a youth-made community film.
Download the Invite: CRYJ Movie Invite 11.15.11
If you were on the Eastside of Kalispell on the afternoon of October 25th, you might have seen a spectacular sight! Adult volunteers and CRYJ youth donned Halloween costumes and went door to door collecting food for the Food Bank. In less than two hours, we collected more than 400 pounds of food from generous residents. The average visitor to the Food Bank leaves with 12 pounds of food per visit. Our efforts supplied food for more than 35 needy families in the upcoming Holiday season. Special thanks to Montana Conservation Corps for collecting and delivering the food to the Food Bank at the end of the project.
On October 8th, CRYJ Youth volunteered with the 2nd Annual 5K “A Run through History” presented by the Kalispell Downtown Association and the Business Improvement District. Volunteers helped with set up and cheered on racers as they sped through Woodland Park and historic downtown Kalispell.
In connection with Two Rivers Aikido and the celebration of International Peace Week, CRYJ youth participants designed and created a mural project to present reflections on peace and feelings of connection for the International Day of Peace (September 21st).
This mural serves as a powerful reflection opportunity for youth – creating a space to discuss feelings of connection and to work to capture metaphors and images that speak to the ideals of peace. For CRYJ youth participants, this means exploring what it means to commemorate and strengthen peace within ourselves and in our communities.
Restorative community service projects, such as this community mural project, are aimed at “reweaving the fabric” of the relationships (community, family, peers) in ways that prevent further harm and increase community safety by reconnecting youth to themselves and to our community through strength-based approaches that offer support and reflection.
