The Golden G Awards

Each year our student leaders grow in skills and confidence. As a staff we try to encourage their unique gifts and personalities with an end of the year awards ceremony called The Golden G's. Students receive recognition for helping out in the kitchen, bringing friends, encouraging the community, and utilizing their skills. This year we add a special surprise as guest "celebrities" (really it was just use in costume . . . ) presented the certificates. The event was part awards show, part talent show and entirely hilarious. This group of students always blesses us with creativity, talent and love. 

THANKS G-FORCE!

Students show off their Golden G Awards

Aom receives an award for most hours spent at Grapevine.

Enjoy grins excitedly as she accepts her award.

All these pictures were taken by Khem who understandably received "The Golden Camera."

Sometimes Fliers Really Do Work (Part 2)

In an earlier post I mentioned a flier which connected three students with Grapevine during the start of our semester. I ended that post by saying that I believed these girls would continue to come, and that prediction came true. Jeab and Dew (Dew is pictured below) became very active members of our community last semester. They helped out washing dishes almost every week, and they frequently  serenaded me with songs from their high school days as we splashed soap and water around the kitchen. They attended almost every event, and even dressed up for our Halloween party. When we had our Thanksgiving in March dinner, they attended and participated in our Thankfulness Show and Tell. 

As Dew began to talk, she smiled as she pulled a folded piece of paper from her purse - a flier. The flier that first introduced her to Grapevine. She simply said she was grateful for this piece of paper which brought her to Grapevine and to this group of friends. Thinking back on all the wonderful talks I've had with Jeab and Dew, the games and laughs and fun we've shared, I'm pretty thankful for it, too.

If you pretend this spoon is a flier, this photo works perfectly with this blog.

Jeab and Dew get ready to enter the Haunted Maze at our Halloween Party. The scariest part of that maze was me dressed as Frida Kahlo standing at the door.