CARY Newsletter Spring 2007

Summer’s On The Way!

In this issue

Austin Toros - CARY Fundraiser/Silent Auction and Special

Former Longhorns Brad Buckman and Kris Clack along with the rest of the Austin Toros, and the Board of CARY, invite you to a special night of Basketball and Giving:

The NBA Development League Toros will hold a special pre-game reception this Saturday on the second level of the Convention Center beginning at 5:30 p.m. with complementary food and beverages,courtesy of Aramark and the Austin Convention Center.

During the reception we will also be hosting a silent auction with several great Toros collectible items and autographed memorabilia available.

A portion of the silent auction proceed will benefit CARY - Council on At-Risk Youth.

For only $20, you get a package that includes admission to the Central Texas Highschool Alstar Game which starts at 4:30, the reception, silent auction, and and the Toro’s.

Please RSVP to the Toros office at 236-8333. To secure your tickets you can call the Toros office or visit www.gettix.net. The entrance into the Austin Convention Center is located at 4th and Red River downtown with convenient parking located at 5th and Red River.

When: THIS SATURDAY April 14th
Denis Johnson High School All Star Game — 4:30 p.m.
Reception and Silent Auction — 5:30 p.m.
Toros vs Dakota Game — 7:00 p.m.

Where: The Austin Convention Center (4th and Red River — the reception will be upstairs on the North Side of the Convention Center, and the games will be downstairs at the Northeast Corner.)

In Memory of Toro’s former Coach and NBA star, Dennis Johnson

Dennis Johnson was a true champion. On the court he earned the respect of his peers. Off the court he was a champion of at risk youth, and for many of the Austin areas youth, their lives will be forever changed. A tribute to Dennis Johnson can be found here.

Adrian’s Corner — Lockhart Disciplinary Management Center Environmental Project

In early February, students at the Lockhart Disciplinary Management Center (DMC) discussed with the Caldwell County Commissioners Court Tom Bonn the possibility of engaging in an environmental project — specifically landscaping beautification at the newly remodeled Caldwell County Courthouse.

Representatives from the Lockhart School District DMC, Caldwell County, the City of Lockhart, Guadelupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA), Longhorn Landscaping Company and CARY’s Youth Advisor, Jana Harter convened to brainstorm and from that came a plan for a comprehensive beautification project for the Courthouse property. GBRA was especially interested in a plan that promoted use of grasses that required little maintenance or water as well as the possibility of using rainwater harvesting from the Courthouse gutter system. As a service-learning project for the students, they were interested in promoting an environmental improvement project and giving back to their community.

On March 6th and 7th there were 23 students who worked along side GBRA, the Landscaping Company, school teachers from the Lockhart DMC, Harter from CARY and other volunteers from the Rights of Spring Festival convened on the courthouse grounds to lay more than 100 pallets of Zoysa grass. The students also pruned Crepe Myrtle trees and zeriscaped flower gardens with native plants. Smitty’s Barbecue in Lockhart hosted lunches for the group of volunteers.

Adrian Moore spoke with the students and one observed that she “felt good to be a part of the project and it would be good to see it grow.” Another student said, “now that he has experience, he had been hired as a part time, weekend landscaper with the independent landscaping contractor.” Each of the students seemed to enjoy the teamwork and the opportunity to help in community beautification. The Courthouse grounds will be newly landscaped in time for the mid April Rights of Spring Festival.

CARY Board Member Biography — Jim Kester

I’m a retired administrator. My education began in boot camp and continues to this day, interrupted by long sabbaticals at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Chicago. The first fifteen years of my career were spent as a teacher, a welfare caseworker, a counselor in a juvenile institution, a parole officer, a planner, and a prison reform advocate for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

The last thirty years of my career were spent in Texas, managing grants in the Criminal Justice Division of the Governor’s Office. I worked with a continuum of programs, from early intervention services for troubled kids to intensive supervision of adult offenders. I learned a lot of things, but here are the three most important ones. They are based on personal experience. They are not new but for that very reason they bear repeating. Most of the thousands of participants in programs I worked with came from troubled families.

Most program participants had problems in school—beginning early and becoming more serious. Those two characteristics became more and more concentrated as participants passed along the continuum. Toward the end of the continuum—prison—they were almost universal.

What do you do with information like that when you retire? You look for a place to put it to work. You look for a program that’s working to keep troubled kids in school and out of the system? You find a program like CARY and volunteer to help. To me, that’s a civic duty.

Other details: My wife and I have five kids and eight grandkids. In my spare time I do a little writing and work on my little piece of the Hill Country, clearing cedar and restoring the native trees and grasses.

CARY 501c3 statement

The Council on At-Risk Youth (CARY) is a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to helping youth prevent violence, drug abuse and delinquency through public information, training, and management of youth violence prevention programs.

CARY surveys best evidence based practice prevention initiatives, collaborates with other organizations and implements violence prevention programs for groups of youth who are at risk of violent behavior and who are assigned to disciplinary programs in the public school setting.

The Council on At Risk Youth Mission

At CARY, our mission is Helping youth promote safe schools and safe communities through the organizitonal goals of advocacy, research and evaluation, public eduction, community collaboration, and focus on future growth. CARY is supported by grant funding, governmental contracts and sponsorships, including city and county funding. Numerous individual friends of CARY have also donated generously toward the support of youth violence prevention and intervention programs.