summer 2024: 27,056 Meals Distributed in Pleasantville
In the summer of 2024, PvilleYI partnered with Knoxville Food Youth Initiative and St. Paul’s United Methodist Church to serve the teens in our community with meals. Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from June 3rd to August 2nd, our volunteers worked together to serve an average of 200 bags per day. Each bag contained 4 to 6 meals for each child and teen.
In total, we distributed 5,794 bags.
This means that we distributed 27,056 meals to children and teens in Pleasantville!
We believe the success of the program in Pleasantville is in part due to our efforts to reduce the stigma associated with participating in a food distribution program. Our volunteers go above and beyond to greet children and make sure they feel seen and worthwhile, even if it’s only a brief interaction. We take time to welcome families with a warm smile and a kind greeting.
We are so grateful that we were able to work with KFYI and St. Paul’s UMC to provide this much needed service to our community!
Trick or treat on the square 2024
It’s always a fun night trick or treating in Pleasantville! We again hosted our Trick or Treat on the Square event on Halloween. This event brings community businesses and organizations together to give the kids a night to remember.
Post Game Party 2024
It was a chilly night in Pleasantville for our 2024 Post Game Party! Luckily our volunteers were ready with music, snacks, and several photo opportunities for teens to enjoy together! We love providing a fun and safe space for teens to spend time with each other.
Over 100 teens grades 7-12 attended this year’s event!
Homecoming 2024
One of our favorite weeks of the year: HOMECOMING! We were so excited to participate again in our small town parade and cheer on the Trojans throughout the week!
Middle School Dance Night 2024
We had a BLAST at our Middle School Dance Night 2024!
Over 100 students attended the dance!
Elevate conference
Some of our team was able to attend the Elevate Conference in Minneapolis thanks to our ministry partners at TreeHouse! Thanks to the generous anonymous donors who paid for our hotel accommodations! We learned about trauma informed youth ministry and much more.
Middle School Back to School Night
On August 22nd, 2024, PvilleYI partnered with Pleasantville Middle School to host a welcome back to school event during their back to school night.
We provided refreshments, resources, and gifts for incoming 7th and 8th graders.
Resources included tips on parenting middle schoolers, information on developmental stages, information about local organizations and opportunities, and more.
We also brought in a display of our recommended products for students of this age, based on feedback from families and our own experiences raising teens! (We get no incentive to do this)
Each student received a welcome back from us full of fun items we know middle schoolers love!
We had a great time partnering with the school and welcoming students back to a new year, and we were honored to help ease parents into a new chapter of parenthood as well.
PvilleYI Partners with treehouse
Pleasantville Youth Initiative strives to provide quality programming for teens and their families in Pleasantville. For this reason it is vital that the programs we will implement are evidence and experienced based. We have always had a goal to add mentoring and support groups to our list of offerings to Pleasantville, but we wanted to make sure we were trained to provide these services. This is why PvilleYI is thrilled to announce our partnership with TreeHouse!
What is TreeHouse?
TreeHouse has been serving teens since 1984, helping them build relationships and resiliency rooted in living hope. Based in Minnesota, TreeHouse has sites across the country. Each site hosts programs that give teens a safe space to find support and belonging. Through mentorships, support groups, and other activities, teens have the opportunity to build even deeper relationships with peers and caring adults.
TreeHouse Mission: To End Hopelessness Among Teens.
TreeHouse is more than just a curriculum. It’s a model that is designed to meet the spiritual, social, and emotional needs of teens in every community.
How will this partnership benefit PvilleYI?
Mentoring: Teens can develop deep relationships with mentors as they process life and develop faith. These will be one-on-one mentoring sessions with trained volunteer mentors. All mentors will be background checked and trained by PvilleYI using a proven model and materials provided by TreeHouse.
Support Groups: Students will learn social and emotional skills by processing their week’s emotions together in a faith-neutral environment. These groups will be faith-neutral so that we can connect with students in the school and be a support for them even if they do not share our faith.
Faith-Centered Groups and Events: TreeHouse believes that Christ is the center of the transformation we want to see in every teen’s life. And so do we! Curriculum to offer small group Bible Studies or large group faith focused events is included in our TreeHouse partnership.
Evidence-Based Training and Support
TreeHouse will provide training for PvilleYI’s directors as well as resources for our team to use as we train volunteers, mentors, and work with local partners. This training includes a 12 week cohort for PvilleYI Directors (which we have already started!).
TreeHouse is picky about who they partner with, and so are we! We began the conversation over two years ago and both we and TreeHouse have researched one another in the meantime. Recently PvilleYI met the high standards that organizations that partner with TreeHouse are required to meet.
An important note: PvilleYI is still PvilleYI. We completely keep our identity as an organization in every way. These specific programs will simply be powered by TreeHouse resources and training, which PvilleYI pays for from our budget. Which we are happy to say we can do so thanks to the generosity of donors in our community!
TreeHouse also provides PvilleYI with:
Policy and Organization Guidance
Best Practices Guides and Safety Checklists
Volunteer Training Resources and Guides
Materials and Resources for Mentoring Teens
Materials and Resources for Teen Support Groups
Materials, Resources, and Curriculum for Faith Connection Groups and Events
Materials, Resources, and Curriculum for Specialized Classes (College Readiness, Financial Management, etc)
Continued and Current Training in Specific Areas Impacting Teens
A Coach Assigned Specifically to our Co-Directors for Our Organization’s Unique Needs
Prayer and Accountability Support for our Leadership and Community
The Guidance of An Organization with 40 years Experience
How Soon Will These Programs Be Available?
Our goal is to begin offering one-on-one mentoring and some support groups as early as the fall of 2024. Once our building project is complete, we will be able to expand these offerings even more and offer faith building groups and events, as well as specialized classes, in addition to our current programming.
We are so excited about what we are already learning from a seasoned and solid organization like TreeHouse. We can’t wait to begin mentoring and supporting teens in Pleasantville!
To learn more about TreeHouse, you can can visit their website.
If you have questions for us about this partnership, please reach out to us at jennie@pvilleyi.org
May baskets 2024
HAPPY MAY DAY! We dropped off 500 May Baskets at the elementary school on May 1st! Thanks to our helpers, and a special thanks to the Young Adult group at Celebrate Church for volunteering your group time to assemble these with us! Many teachers and parents reached out to share their appreciate for this small act of kindness. We believe infusing even small moments of joy in chidlren’s lives can make a HUGE difference!
Celebrate Church thanksgiving offering donation
In November, our ministry partner Celebrate Church chose PvilleYI as the recipient of a special Thanksgiving offering. They collectively blessed us with $16,894.86!
We are so incredibly grateful for the support Celebrate has given us and continues to give us, not only in financial support but in prayer and encouragement. THANK YOU to everyone who participated in this amazing Thanksgiving Offering! We are praying blessings and abundance over you!
New Office Space for PvilleYI
We are SO excited! We now have an office space in downtown Pleasantville. This space will serve our needs as we continue to work toward our building project goal.
We are also incredibly grateful that a generous donor has come forward to pay the rent for this office space for an ENTIRE YEAR. WOW.
We are already hard at work preparing for how we will use this space to bless our community even more!
FCA Worship Night
We were so excited to help at the FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) worship night at Pleasantville Christian Church. We were able to bring cookies donated by Subway as well as drinks to offer as refreshments following the service.
Originally the event was intended to be an outdoor service behind the library. When heavy rain threatened to cancel the event, Pleasantville Christian Church stepped up to open their doors to the teens who had organized the event.
It was a beautiful night of worship!
Cookie Decorating With Pleasantville Girl Scouts
On February 16, 2022, PvilleYI Co-Founder Emily Caulkins taught our local Pleasantville Girl Scout Troop 624. It was a ton of fun! The Girl Scouts learned a little bit about the science of baking, as well as techniques for decorating sugar cookies like a pro.
The cookies and frosting the Girl Scouts used were made at our cookie decorating class the night before, where we taught teens how to mix, roll out, cut, and bake sugar cookies.
We were so happy to spend time with all these happy, smiling faces! We’re proud of these Girl Scouts and congratulations on getting your baking badges!
Cookie Making Class
On February 15th, 2022, we had a cookie making class for a small group of middle school and high school students. PvilleYI co-founder Emily Caulkins taught the teens the basics of making large batches of sugar cookies. She showed them how to carefully measure ingredients (yes, you really do need to make sure that was 2 cups and not 3), how to mix the ingredients properly, how to roll the dough just right, and how to use cookie cutters and bake the cookies. The teens also made delicious frosting.
This class was for the teens to learn baking skills, but it was also an opportunity for them to give back to the community. These cookies and frosting were going to be used by our Pleasantville Girl Scout troop to use for their cookie decorating class, which Emily taught as well.
We served these helpful bakers some pizza while we waited for cookies to bake. During this time we were able to talk and learn about each other, see the teens incredible art in their sketchbooks, and laugh together.
It was a fantastic time. Thank you to Pleasantville’s St. Paul’s United Methodist Church for allowing us to use their Family Life Center and kitchen for this event!
PvilleYI Interview: In Depth Today with Dr. Bob Leonard
On December 11th, 2019 a group of youth along with PvilleYI leaders were featured on Dr. Bob Leonard’s In Depth Today Radio show for KNIA/KRLS. The interview can be listened to in its entirety here.
A huge thanks to Jennie Koenig, Silas Koenig, Jury Ellis, Madilyn Rowson, Stacy Rowson, Emily Caulkins, and Elizabeth Goodale for contributing to this interview, and thanks Bob for thinking of us!
5th & 6th Grade Pre-Game Party 2019
We had a BLAST on October 18th at our Pre-Game party for 5th and 5th graders!
We started things out with a few large group games. When a mountain of hotdogs that the Booster Club cooked up for us arrived we sent kids through the line for dinner. We served them hotdogs, chips, snack cakes, and their choice of caffeine free pop or water. The photo booth was set up for them to snap some photos, too!
For such a high energy group we knew we’d need some high energy games! We ordered dodge balls that are “regulation”, which apparently means they are supposed to throw better and sting less. They seemed to have a lot of fun playing! Kids were also welcome to choose not to play and just hang out with friends and chat. But most everyone played or laughed on the sidelines.
We had hoped to end the night with a super fun dance off, and the kids were amped for it! Our blue tooth speaker, which had been working just fine at the start of our night, malfunctioned and we had to finish with the basketball game knock-out instead. We were pretty bummed out about the music, we had some kids READY to dance! A better system and microphone are on our future shopping list. We need to be able to amplify our voices above such excited kids!
We also took a short moment to remind kids why we do what we do. We reminded them that we care about them, that they matter, and that God cares about them. God loves us lavishly, unconditionally, and asks us to love others the same way. Which is what we intend to do!
We want to the thank the Pleasantville Trojans Booster Club for helping us order the hotdogs and buns, and also for cooking them up for us. We were so thankful, and the kids loved devouring them. A huge thank you also to all of our volunteers and to those who donated money and pop to help with the event.
If you would like to donate to help us host more events for Pleasantville youth, click on the button below!
500 May Baskets
To celebrate MAY DAY we came together to make over 500 May Baskets!
Youth and volunteers punched holes in paper cups and used pipe cleaners to make a handle. We added popcorn, M&Ms, and some suckers in assembly line fashion. Students wrote encouraging messages on each basket.
Early on May first we delivered these to every student in the entire elementary school! We also left a shiny new pencil for each student as well. The kids were so surprised to get a special May Day gift!
We hope kids at Pleasantville Elementary School felt loved and appreciated!