We've got a bright shiny building!

Hey SEEED family!

I couldn’t be happier about the Career Readiness Program recruitment, y’all! We have 10 applications filled out already, so it’s getting competitive! We have some wonderful, motivated candidates. We will probably not be advertising the program much more for participants since we already have more people interested than we can accept. Interviews will start next week, and then we will have our Fall 2015 Career Readiness Program class ready to go. That frees me up to focus on recruiting instructors. I’m hoping to get a guest instructor in for most of the workshops. There’s so much talent in this community, so it would be great to show these young people some of the great leaders of Knoxville. On that note, check us out in this week’s KnoxvilleNoir blog (link). Our friend Quineka is doing great work keeping talented black folks engaged in the city, so give her some love!

This week the Turnkey building was full of young faces getting ready to learn, but not in the way you might expect. Classes at the University of Tennessee start back next week, and 30 incoming freshmen in UT’s Ignite program volunteered their day getting SEEED in top shape before their school starts back and before ours does, too. The students got started getting the building in shape for our Career Readiness Program students to come in ready to earn while they learn. Outside, the Ignitees trimmed the bushes, watered the community garden, broke down the old compost bins, and took apart the mysterious half-formed pond that was summoning mosquitoes in the back yard. Inside, they cleaned all the floors, organized the supply closet, and took the old tint off the windows. They even organized SEEED’s mini-library, so anyone who wants to borrow a book from us can come on by and find something they like! Altogether, that was hundreds of dollars worth of labor, so we are very grateful!

SEEED runs on volunteers, so if you ever have the hankering to garden, paint, or clean some bathrooms (ok, I don’t think anyone wants to do that last one) come down and see us! You might end up on this blog!

Mini Summer Program Video

SEEEDville, a lot going on here over at SEEED. Personally, I have been creating an application guideline for Three Rivers Market Nourishing change, created a media guide, added our set program dates to our websites event calendar, and finished up my production workshop at CTV Knoxville.

One thing I would like to share is a video clip from when we teamed up with the Just Lead Program of the Emerald Youth Foundation. This was our mini summer session...

Hope you enjoyed it...

SEEEDville out.

Countdown to Careers

The Career Readiness Program starts in just over a month! As you can guess, there’s a lot to do around here before then. We are fundraising toward our goal of $30,000 for the fall session. John and I have already sent out 117 letters, and we licked every single one of those envelopes. That’s love, Seeedville. :)

At the same time, we are starting up recruitment for the Career Readiness Program. The application deadline for students is September 2^nd, and we already have a few great applications in. We will take the 10 most motivated and prepared applicants. So if you know any young adults looking to get into a career, send them on over. Applications can be picked up at SEEED Monday-Friday 9-4.

We are also on the lookout for workshop instructors for the fall. Our workshops are never boring, so come ready for interactive, fun learning with a bunch of fantastic young men and women. Open topics include Hopes and Dreams, Interviewing Skills, and Applying for Jobs. If you are interested in teaching these or any other life and job skills to young adults getting on the pathway out of poverty, email seeedknox@gmail.com for more information or fill out the volunteer interest form at seeedknox.com. 

We'll keep you in the loop as we get closer to starting the Career Readiness Program started up. Get pumped, Seeedville!

Hello SEEED family,

It's been a super busy week. First I'd like to talk about the proposal Lee sent out to Scripps, or more commonly known as HGTV. While Lee was on vacation Stan and I talked with them about a potential opportunity with Rebuild Together Knoxville to revamp Morningside Community Center. If we are selected the community center makeover would be HGTV's VIP project with Vanilla Ice and spotlighted nationally.

Also, I finalized our Marketing Action Plan for our upcoming Job Readiness Training in September. Moreover, we're getting closer to speculative dates with respect to the county workshops and outreach programs. Erin Eldridge form Alliance to Save Energy has a huge task for us to accomplish (which will be discussed at a later date). This week was just filled with meeting's accompanied by numerous moving parts which I will not bore you with.

Additionally, we created a video for the Just Lead Program of the Emerald Youth Foundation for which we will be posting on Facebook and maybe (if it's good enough) our website. Speaking of social media, we have a B.B.Q fundraiser at Jarman's B.B.Q coming up August 2nd, so spread the word.  And my last tidbit is for Lee's vacation.
:)

SEEED OUT

School's Out for Summer

Hey, everybody! Last week’s post from John was a preview of the letter going out to the people of SEEEDville as we speak. So that means I have two weeks to catch y’all up on. We’ve been scrambling around the office with each of us working on our own projects, so I’ll let John tell you about marketing and all that fun stuff.

basically John :)

This week was also the end of SEEED’s first session of Life Skills Training for Emerald Youth’s Just Lead. School may be out, but those kids were working hard and cracking us all up while they did it. Here’s a little sample of some of the goals those 14 and 15 year old young men and women set with us at SEEED:

• “Make sure my family is financially stable and well.”
• “Stop feeding into negativity.”
• “Be making at least second honor roll by next year.”
• “I want to get closer to God.”
• “I want to be a chef, and I want to own my own restaurant.”
• “Be myself.”

Over the summer, we covered topics like how to shake hands and introduce yourself, goal setting, and figuring out what you value. To celebrate wrapping up, the kids each picked a peach from SEEED’s edible forest, some of the first fruit of the year.

Take care, y’all!

-Lee

Help Support the SEEED foundation!!!!

SEEEDVILLE!!!! Thanks to SEEED’s 5+ years of grassroots advocacy, Knoxville’s Smarter Cities Initiative is gearing up to weatherize over 1,200 homes. This weatherization will lower KUB bills for hundreds of low-income families by making their homes more airtight and energy efficient. And we have even more good news for you: SEEED is using this opportunity to get young adults on the pathway out of poverty. The city’s weatherization program will create 200 new jobs. SEEED is fighting for young people in these same low-income communities to get those jobs.

 What makes SEEED special, though, is our commitment to merging job skills with environmental education. We believe that energy efficiency technology presents an exciting chance to grow the Knoxville economy. The students we train aren’t just ready for jobs-- they’re ready to be a meaningful part of Knoxville’s growing green economy.

The city is poised to weatherize homes at historic levels over the next two years, and this work will create hundreds of jobs. SEEED aims to prepare our young adults for these jobs. SEEED is partnering with the city to get our students to work right away. Outside the classroom, students will put their new skills into action educating homeowners about how to weatherize their homes. Through SEEED’s career readiness program, these young adults will get paychecks now while gaining skills for lifelong careers.

           Now we need your help. To run this life-changing training, SEEED needs to raise $30,000 before the first class in August. Our current opportunity with the city of Knoxville will let us do more than ever to help the young people of Knoxville. Moreover, Knoxville plan's to match 15,000 of what we raise. Don’t wait— right now is the time for you to invest in our young adults.
You can donate on our website page at: 
www.seeedknox.com
           or by mail at: 
SEEED, INC
1617 Dandridge Avenue 
Knoxville, TN, 37915 

Where do you live?

Hey, SEEEDVille! This week feels like I’m for real getting to work here. We have a budget for the next career readiness training, plans for community workshops, and some new members of the SEEED family. Time is flying by!

Y'all know that SEEED has a reputation to being #1 at getting people interested in energy efficiency. It’s not hard a hard sell when you’re talking about weatherizing somebody’s house-- that means saving money on KUB bills. Now SEEED is planning to kick that education up a notch by hosting workshops in all the senior centers in Knox County to teach people how to save money on their utility bills for free. I’ve been learning from the best programs across the country on workshops like these, so I’m super excited to help write the content for these workshops. Plans aren’t final, but we’ve got Mayor Burchett on our side, so we’re feeling good! Keep up to date about that on our facebook page. The workshops are free, but there’s a special ticket so don’t miss out!

This week we hit the jackpot with new SEEED family. SEEED has needed an accountant for a while. As great as Stan is, he’s not an orderly person. Many thanks to Michelle, who’s been a lifesaver, but it’s a lot of work. So now we have not one but TWO new folks around the office! Steve is a pro who has plenty of experience with management and finance and a B.A. from Lincoln Memorial University. He loves to ride motorcycles, too, so not only can he sort out our accounting but he can look very cool while doing it. J And welcome also to Samantha, our new finance and accounting intern! Samantha is a junior at my and John’s alma mater. GO VOLS! She’s studying finance with a collateral in accounting, and she just finished her second year of Mandarin. Wow! She is also interested in sustainability, so we’ll see if we can pull her away from the computer to work on the green side of things.

John’s been filming around the office to get the hang of making videos. You should have seen him yesterday practicing until he had the words just right and looked camera-ready. Keep an eye out on facebook for his video coming soon!

Mostly lately I’ve been working on how to get the word out about what we do here at SEEED. I think our work is pretty cool, but if somebody doesn't know about it we can't help them and they can't help us. This is where you come in! Over the next week of two, we will be sending letters and emails and calling the people of SEEEDVille to tell them what we want to do to get young people jobs while educating communities about energy efficiency. Obviously you care about SEEED, so I don’t want to leave you out! Our email address is seeedknox@gmail.com. Email me your name and mailing address, and I’ll make sure you get a letter from us with our vision for SEEED and our plans to get young people to work and on the pathway out of poverty.

Talk to you soon!

-Lee