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

SEEEDVILLE Friday's!!!!

Hey Everybody,

An extremely busy week this week!!! The beginning stages of planning out our career readiness program has been a ginormous task, but as I often say- thank god we have Lee. Additionally, the city increased it's program to weatherize houses from $7.12 million dollars to $15 MILLION. Fortunately, SEEED may have a huge part in this program training some of these young, at risk youth's to get job's created form the weatherization program. Moreover, everybody knows that SEEED is the place to go for green jobs like weatherization, so it will definitely be getting busy around here.

Also, I want to give a huge shout out to one of our program's finest!! Terrance (Big T) is heading off to Santa Barbara College this August to pursue his dream. Again, congrats Terrance on your continued success and of course, enjoy the West Coast!!!

 And last, but not least our young people from the Just Lead program and our Emerald Youth Foundation partners participated in their second week of life skills training with us. This weeks agenda included proper handshake and eye contact platforms. I tried posting a video of the game who's my homie, but I am having technical difficulties. Needless to say it was a fun day.


Until next time SEEEDville,

SEEED out

TGIF

Hey, y’all! Lee again. It’s been a wild couple weeks here at SEEED. We’re gearing up for our next career readiness training course in August, but before then there’s a lot to do. We are in the early stages of planning a new opportunity for our job trainees. The city will be rolling out a brand new 7.12 MILLION dollar program to weatherize houses, and it’s still up in the air how to spread the word. Everybody knows that SEEEED is the place to go for green jobs like weatherization, so I think it’ll get busy around here soon. Right now it’s a lot to take in, but it’ll all be worth it once those first paychecks come in for our trainees.

The building is pretty quiet this week since we don’t have the Just Lead kids here. John and I have been rocking out to his favorite music for getting stuff done, Taylor Swift, with the occasional Watch Me played by Josh, dance included. Never a dull day at SEEED!

not technically a picture of Josh, but you get the idea

Don’t forget that we have raised garden beds that are available for anyone to plant their vegetables in. The edible forest is looking good, and there are some tiny little fruits showing up. There’s still some room in a few of the garden beds, so if don’t have room in your yard come on down here to plant some vegetables. The best part is that raised beds have fewer weeds, and you don’t have to bend over to weed them!

Leroy mugging for the camera

Our next big project is updating the donor list so that we can keep y'all updated on what SEEED is doing. It turns out we don't have the mailing addresses for lots of people. Since everybody loves getting mail (as long as it isn't a bill!), be on the lookout for a letter over the next few weeks from all of us here at SEEED. Until then, John's keeping you up to date on facebook and twitter. Come in and see us any time!

What's Happening SEEED Fam!!!!!!!

         This is John here, the new Social Media and Events Coordinator at SEEED. It's been a crazy, busy second week over here at Morningside Community Center. We began our week meeting with senior program associate Jennifer Alldredge with the Alliance to Save Energy non-profit. Tuesday, we headed over to the Urban League and let me tell you.....These Kids!!!! I don't know who was teaching who about weatherization and sustainability. A few have volunteered with us at SEEED, and it was great to see a change of philosophy in some of these young people.

 

       Additionally, Lee and I went over to the Lawson Mcghee Library to look for grant opportunity which will be a great resource for us, SEEED, and the community in the near future. Wednesday, the Just Lead program and our Emerald Youth Foundation partners brought around 20 youth's to began our first day of life skills training, and this is what it's all about. We strive to create pathways out of poverty for young adults and this life readiness program will give them the fundamental tools they need to succeed. To say the least, it was a great first day !!! 

           The second half of the week has been filled with one on one meetings with our supervisor Anya, goal setting for the upcoming month, after action reviews, and other administrative type jazz. OH! I almost forgot. SEEED is now looking for an accounting intern, for which Lee put a posting to on Hire-a-VOL. That being, if anybody is looking for a great opportunity to work for a great organization come down and visit us over here as SEEED. Until next time. SEEED. OUT. 

 

Week One!

Hello from your new SEEED Career Readiness Program Coordinator, Lee!

John and I are wrapping up our first week on site at SEEED, and it’s already been a whirlwind! Before we even got in the doors for our first day, we had two weeks of training. First we went to Atlanta with all the other new AmeriCorps VISTAs in the South for a few days in the Emory Conference Center. The food was great, and we were told to enjoy it because we wouldn't make enough to eat that well for a while! Back in Tennessee we had a week of training with some of the other VISTA members in the area serving in Knoxville and Jefferson City. We met up at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City for a few days of learning about the area and getting to know each other. We are lucky to have a great group of VISTAs working together this year!

Finally we got to actually get started at SEEED last Friday. John is taking over for Summer. He will be working on social media, so he'll be running the facebook page. twitter, instragram, and probably other sites I don't even know about. Right now, he’s updating SEEED's website, so check out his work! He'll also be setting up big events throughout the year for SEEED. From what I hear, SEEED knows how to party, so John will have his hands full!

As for me, I’m taking over for Kenisha as Program Coordinator for the career readiness program. Kenisha left two binders full of papers about everything she does, so it’s a little overwhelming right now. I’m looking forward to the challenge, though!

So far, John and I have met a ton of people doing great work to make Knoxville better. There’s no way I can list everyone, but here are some of the highlights of the first week.

•          Josh Outsey is back in town! Josh was one of the co-founders of SEEED and was in Kentucky as an Appalachian Transition Fellow. We got to hear some great stories and advice about Stan and SEEED.
  
•          The Williams Creek Community Garden is getting rolling! They have their first plot tilled and a sign up. Very official! They will be planting pumpkins this year that will be ripe just in time for Halloween. Thanks to Caley, the VISTA at the Permaculture Guild for letting us see the cool work y’all are doing!
  
•          The folks from Neighborhood Nerds fixed John’s computer. It wasn’t a great start for John to come into the office on the first day and not be able to connect to the internet. The Nerds helped him out and it was working in no time. Those guys are awesome!
  
•          We met with people from all across town to learn more about what’s coming up this year in weatherization and energy efficiency. Erin Gill and Brian Blackmon in Knoxville’s Office of Sustainability were especially helpful.
  

We still have a lot to learn about SEEED, but it looks like there’s some great work being done here. I’m excited to dig in and meet everybody soon. And we have the perfect opportunity to meet y’all at the barbecue coming up! Don't forget: We are having a cookout with Jarman's BBQ Friday June 19^th right here at SEEED. See you there!