Bryan and Sam's Big Adventure (aka Student Publicity for Boston LGR)

Today went very well. We started off in Roxbury at the Boy's and Girl's Club and did not get to speck to the youth director since they were not in at the time but we left all of our information and put up fliers. It was suggested that we contact RC, who is the Teen Director at that Boys & Girls Club of Boston. We then trekked over to the Library that was right there, and the youth coordinator was on vacation but we spoke with the branch director and she seemed interested but not overly enthusiastic. We left materials and put up fliers, and Sam even spoke to a parent who stopped to look at the flyer and then she asked for more fliers for herself and neighbors (AWESOME!). Bryan smiled as she left, so she knew that her children would be in good hands. After Roxbury we hopped on the Silver Line and rode up to the Blackstone Community Center where we again were unable to speak with the youth director but we left materials and put up fliers. This is where our day takes a turn towards amazing, nay, uber-amazing.

We headed over to the South End Branch Library where we met Margret. Margret loved us, not only for our dashingly good looks and smoothing talking, but for our Boston College roots (she is an alumna), and not to mention our wonderful program. She was a big help and pointed us in many different directions including the Teen Empowerment Center on Rutland St, the Harriet Tubman House at Columbus and Mass Ave, and the South End Tech Tent City. And after all of this she asked if we could come do an evening presentation to parents on Tuesday June 19, and even though this is the verbal coach training we couldn't say no. So, one of us will head over to the library for an hour during that coach training to speak with parents. And to make this contact even sweeter she has contacts at two or three local newspapers in Roxbury, South End and possibly South Boston and she is going to type up an ad to submit to them using the info sheets specific to our program that we gave her. It also seemed like she was going to spend a week or two sitting in front of the fax machine, sending this information to anybody she would deem useful. Margaret is going to e-mail us with her progress, and we will also get her contact info that way. She also gave us a website that we still need to check out, www.mytowninc.org , it apparently is a good place to list our program. We will investigate further.

After our half an hour talk with Margret we departed the SE Branch and headed to Teen Empowerment where we learned a little bit about what they do. We spoke with someone there who said she would pass along our information to the Youth coordinator and we again put up fliers. This was a place that we should return to in future semesters because they have networks all over Boston.

From here we headed to Chinatown. Our first stop was lunch, and we ate at this interesting Vietnamese place. The "water" was either very gross water or tea…we couldn't decide but Sam's curry chicken was quite fantastic, and Bryan's curry beef was unsettling. The lemonade, which tasted like they had put 3 Crystal Light packets in an 8 ounce Styrofoam cup of water was also a highlight.

--Posted by Eric on behalf of Bryan and Sam, Boston LGR Fellows Summer 2007