Virtual Giving Envelopes: On Our Way To The First 250K
When our community comes together, things get done. It's as simple as that. We've seen it time and time again. And Pleasantville, it's time!
With the large amount we have to fundraise to make our building project a reality, we have to start with a strong base. Our first goal is a big one: $250K. This seed money will be vital. Most large donors and grants require a percentage of funds to be raised before an organization's application is considered.
To become eligible for big funding, we need your help. Would you prayerfully consider donating to one of these "envelopes" to help us launch our fundraising efforts in a big way?
Every donation makes a difference, and the clock is ticking. We want to get this place built and in action so that we can begin meeting the very real needs in our community.
Just this week members of our team have had dozens of conversations with community members, parents, and teens who tell us how desperately their children or friends need the kinds of programs and opportunities PvilleYI is preparing to offer.
Maybe you don't have teens yet. Maybe your kids are still young, or even babies! All the more reason for you to support this effort TODAY, for the future of your little ones who, before you know it, will be teens.
Maybe your kids are grown and out of school. Have you heard about the awesome things we are planning to do for the whole community? You'll want to give, because this project will positively impact the ENTIRE community.
We know our goal is big. But Pleasantville, we are going to do this. We are passionate. We are determined. We are equipped. We are READY.
Every single person who donates will have their name added to a beautiful mural we will paint inside our building.
To give, you can donate online on our website, on Facebook (zero fees!), or via Venmo: Pvilleyi. You can also mail a check to Pleasantville Youth Initiative PO Box 529 Pleasantville, IA 50225.
PLEASANTVILLE YOUTH INITIATIVE IS A 501 (C) (3) NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION.
EIN IS 47-5099903
DLN # IS 29053252330009
Donation "Envelopes"
400 People donating $25
200 People donating $50
200 People donating $100
100 People donating $500
20 People donating $1,000
10 People donating $5,000
5 People donating $10,000
May Day Baskets 2021
Happy May Day! We continued our tradition of surprising each child at Pleasantville Elementary with a May Basket. We placed them on each desk before school, and we made sure the faculty and staff got one, too!
Competition For Kids Who Like Games 2021
It was SO great to actually get to have an IN PERSON event again! Covid has been hard for all of us. Thankfully we were able to have this outdoor event and have some fun!
Teens were split into teams and given a team color with matching bandana. Each team came up with a funny name, and team identity!
Teams competed in a bunch of games curated to match the different levels of interest of teens. From Basketball to Dodgeball to Improv and Trivia, there was a little something for everyone!
We had a GREAT time!
Thanks so much to all our volunteers! And thank you to Celebrate Church, Knoxville for lending us your 9-Square sets!
Creativity Challenge Winners
We are so IMPRESSED by all of the creative teens in our community. Our theme for this challenge was: HOPE: finding light in the darkness during 2020 and 2021. We were blown away by the beauty that these teens were able to capture and share with the world.
JUDGES
Our judges had a difficult job choosing a winner in each category. They took the time to look over every entry and provide encouraging feedback for each participant. (Feedback to every teen will be emailed out to them within a few days of this announcement). It was very important to our PvilleYI leadership team that judges came from outside of our team and board, since several of our team and volunteers have teens who wanted to participate.
THANK YOU to these wonderful people for being our Judges!
Anna Belzer
Carol Beier
Amy Core
Cass Lester
WINNERS
Here are the winners for our Spring 2021 Creativity Challenge! Each will receive a $100 cash prize. We will be in touch to get those prizes to you, winners!
Visual Art: SARAH MANN
Writing: ADONIAH KOENIG
The Girl With Her Hood UP
-Addie Koenig
Photography: JONAH SCHUMACHER
Music: ELIZABETH GOODALE
Dance: TARYN BRENT
Each of our participants will receive encouraging feedback from our judges, as well as being featured on our website! To see all of our entries, check out our Creativity Gallery!
Congrats to all our winners, and all participants! KEEP CREATING! We are SO proud of each and every teen!
Big News! Future Location of PvilleYI Headquarters
Our big announcement is that the old Pleasantville Grocery Store location will soon be PvilleYI’s headquarters!
Here’s a few things we covered in our live feed, if you missed it. Or, you can with it below!
1) This is not a youth center in the traditional sense. Although it will be focused on youth, the entire community will benefit from our work here.
2) We see ourselves as a Generational Enrichment Ministry. What this means is we believe that by impacting one person’s life in a positive way, generations around them and after them will benefit. This place will be a headquarters to carry out that ministry.
We want to make it clear that we also see ourselves as a SUPPLEMENTAL ministry. What this means is we have no intention of competing with youth groups and organizations that are already doing good work here. We want to connect kids with those, actually. This is why we will never host events on Sunday or Wednesday evenings during the school year. We love our local churches and groups and we want to support them as much as possible!
3) Our dream here is to provide classes like art, photography, music, cooking, and more. We envision hosting events and classes to help teens prepare for adulthood. Like life skills (how to fix a broken _____, how to change a tire, how to create a budget, and more). Entrepreneur and career planning will be on the agenda, too. We imagine bringing in Pleasantville alum to speak and inspire.
Optional Faith growth opportunities will be regular and we will help families connect with local churches, teach Bible reading skills (important for proper interpretation and application) and give out Bibles (to kids who express interest. This will never be forced or “required”).
This in addition to all the FUN stuff and events we’ve come to be known for around here!
4) Our entire community will benefit as well. From fun events (like our trick or treat on the square) to providing resources for parents and teens, to service projects. Research also shows that non profits like ours encourage growth and “livability” to a community! And beyond all that, we want to help bring some LIFE back to downtown!
5) How did this happen, how will it happen? This is a beautiful story involving our dear friend and board member Stacy Rowson, and her excitement about what we are going to do. Stacy is moving her Lakefront Living Custom Engraving & Gifts shop to a part of the location, and made it possible for us to begin this process. This is a beautiful story that we will tell in detail soon!
Currently, we are in the process of meeting with architects, engineers, and other building/construction experts. We are blessed to have board members with professional experience in this area, and they are doing their homework. This is definitely not something we have entered into blindly.
As we get more information, we will share it!
6) Call to Action
We need the community to do two things right now: 1) Pray. We need your prayer support more than ever! 2) Give. If you are excited about this project, we’d love for you to consider giving. Every little bit helps us to create a base to begin this protect. This is especially important at the early stages, as most grants we will apply for require a certain percentage of the funds to be raised.
7) WE LOVE this location, and we know the community does too. It has been nourishing Pleasantville for generations and our goal is that it will continue to. We love and appreciate the nostalgia surrounding Pleasantville Grocery, and we want to honor that history in many ways. We want to make sure the community understands that!
That’s it for now. We will keep all of you up to speed as this process unfolds! If you have questions, feel free to contact us! We’d love to talk!
If you want to know how to donate, you can see how here:
Art Supplies Donated to PHS
When we heard that the PHS CSD Art Department was in need of some supplies, we knew we needed to help! Creativity is such an important, God designed part of who we are. Fueling creativity in young people gives them purpose, gives them something to do, and helps them grow.
PvilleYI donated over $1,000 in supplies including sketch books, paints, colored pencils, and so much more. This was all made possible by the the incredible generosity of those who have donated to our organization! Great job, Pleasantville. Look what a wonderful thing you did!
The art supplies are already being put to good use. Look at these awesome Kindness Cards the students created for the residents at our local nursing home! We love this beautiful act of kindness, you guys! Great job!
We will treasure this beautiful, handmade thank you card!
Homecoming 2020
2020 has been a year for the history books. And not for good reasons. But we are all doing what we can to make the best of it! Even though we can’t have Homecoming the way we usually do around here, we found other ways to bring joy. For example, sure, we couldn’t throw candy during the annual Homecoming parade, but we found the next best thing: BUBBLES!
Our theme was “PvilleYI is Bubbling Over with School Spirit”! We had three bubble machines on high blasting bubbles around like confetti! We had a truck full of kids waving and we went all out in our orange and black!
We wore masks to be extra safe and comply to the school’s guidelines with the COVID-19 pandemic. If you saw Jennie without hers on, she wasn’t being rebellious, it fell off and landed in the bubble bucket. Oops. :)
We love our town’s fun traditions, and we were happy to get to participate this year even if it was a little different than usual.
Class of 2020 Gifts
The Class of 2020 had to give up so much due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. We wanted to give them a gift to help bring something special to a group of graduates who faced an awful lot of disappointment.
Each gift included a personalized padfolio, class of 2020 leather pen, a 2020 Quarantine Award featuring the coveted toilet paper roll, class of 2020 mask, and a letter of encouragement from us.
We wish the class of 2020 the VERY BEST as they enter into a whole new world of possibilities!
May Day 2020: Over 600 May Baskets!
On May 1st, 2020, we handed out and delivered 600 May Baskets to our community! Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we adjusted our plans to be extra careful.
Volunteers put together and filled the baskets with candy and some flower seeds to plant!
We met at Shadle Park in Pleasantville and began a drive-thru May Day Basket pick up. Of course we dressed up in fun costumes and had music playing! Everyone needed a boost of HAPPY after so much time in quarantine.
After our drive-thru time ended, we left the baskets we had left at random homes around Pleasantville.
We had so much fun bringing back this fantastic tradition!
Dear Pleasantville Students
Dear Pleasantville Students:
We are so sorry that this virus has robbed you of your school year.
We are so sorry that you’ve had your spring sports stolen from you.
We are so happy, though, that you are HERE. We hope you see that there is nothing more important to this community than your health and well-being.
Yes, YOU.
YOU are more important than the traditions, the trophies, and the academic successes.
YOU are more important than our jobs and our wallets.
YOU are more important than our ceremonies and competitions.
YOU matter. Very much. Because YOU are not all of those awards and stats. They are only things you do, things you accomplish. You may feel stripped of your identity and your passions right now. But we beg you to see how important you are without all of those talents. You don’t have to be good at academics or sports for us to value you. Without any of those things, YOU still matter, exactly as you are.
Especially as you are.
It won’t always be this way. Soon you’ll be back to your subjects and sports. Back to the cafeteria and gym. Back to the smell of new pencils and whatever that stuff is that the custodian puts on puke. But until then, WE are rooting for you JUST AS MUCH right now.
You matter to us.
We know you’re missing so much. And especially seniors, we are praying for you as you navigate such an incredible disappointment.
The world will be stronger because of what the class of 2020 has had to overcome.
But it’s so important that you see that nothing is more important to us than YOU.
**If any of you need something, if you’re afraid, if you don’t feel safe at home, reach out and contact your school or send us a message***
Prom & Party Dress Extravaganza!
We had an INCREDIBLE day at our Prom & Party Dress Extravaganza! Girls from Pleasantville and surrounding communities found the perfect dress with the help of our encouraging volunteers.
Prom is expensive. Anyone who has gone to one, or two, or more proms will tell you that finding a dress for a reasonable price is no easy task. For many girls, that perfect dress is out of reach because it is so expensive. This dress, worn for one night, can cost up to $500 or more. Half the battle for many girls is searching the clearance racks for something that will work. So we had this idea: what if people donated these hardly worn dresses and let any girl in the community feel beautiful wearing it? People responded with over 100 dresses being donated for this event. We were STUNNED at the outpouring of generosity!
Before we even opened the doors, girls were ready and waiting to shop. We had covered the walls of the Memorial Hall with encouraging messages about beauty and body positivity. There was a delicious table of treats and punch for them as they shopped.
Although getting girls a prom dress was the practical purpose for this event, we had an even bigger goal in mind. We wanted to shower these young women with kindness and encouragement. We wanted them to feel beautiful inside and out. Our volunteers helped girls search for dresses, urging them to “give this one a try”. Some girls were very shy, even saying, “no, that will not look good on me.” Our volunteers kept up the encouragement and many times, that dress that a girl thought would “never work for me”, was the one they walked out with. Their eyes lit up as they suddenly looked at themselves differently. Moms beamed, dads held back tears, and the girls were radiant. Sure, true beauty is on the inside, but these girls needed to know that they ARE beautiful on the outside too.
Each girl also received a swag bag full of little gifts from us and local businesses, and a chance to win a raffle prize! Thank you to AvaLayne Hair Studio, Chiropractic Hut, Jen for the Massage, Chelsea Bender and Kirsten Furnal for Young Living Makeup sets, Lakefront Living Custom Engraving and Gifts, The Well-Knoxville, Jennifer Holdredge for the Mary Kay samples, Jessica Haigins for the paparazzi jewelry donation, Pleasant Hill Dry Cleaners for the plastic dress bags, and all those who donated dresses and jewelry to make this happen!
This event gave a free dress to every Pleasantville girl who wanted one, in addition to a free piece of jewelry. Girls from surrounding communities, or women searching for a dress for our Prom Throwback (for Adults!) fundraiser coming up April 25th, could get a dress for $25.00. Originally we had planned to donate half of the proceeds from those purchases to Pleasantville’s After Prom, but after talking about it with our team, we decided all $400 we took in would be donated to After Prom. Why? Because we just love those kids, and want them to have an AMAZING time at Prom!
All dresses that were not given away or sold were donated to The Well in Knoxville, where girls can still go and shop for a dress!
We are so excited to continue to bless Pleasantville’s youth in more and more ways. We hope the girls who attended felt that we truly believe they matter to us, and to God. Watch the full highlight video here.
5th and 6th Grade Christmas Gifts 2019
On Monday, December 16th, our team delivered 100 small gifts to our 5th and 6th graders at Pleasantville Elementary. It is so important to us that kids this age know we care about them, and that we are looking forward to hosting events for them when they are in middle school.
Each gift contained some candy, a bracelet, a sticker, and a small faux diamond. This little gem was to serve as a reminder that they are unique and full of purpose. The boxes also contained a special note of encouragement, which you can see and read below!
We hope this small gesture made kids feel special and loved!
Christmas Party 2019
Hot Chocolate, popcorn, music, and gifts? What more could a kid ask for! On December 14th, 2019 we hosted our first ever Christmas party for 7th-12th graders. It was a blast!
This event was different than events we have done in the past. Rather than just being a hang out night, this event brought the kids center-stage for a series of fun activities including a Christmas Tree making contest, a lip sync battle, and a Christmas Q&A.
The highlight of the night for PvilleYI volunteers was handing out a gift to every kid. Everyone got the same thing: a brown box containing gummy bears, takis (chips), a PvilleYI bracelet, a PvilleYI decal sticker that says “Every Person Matters”, a few pieces of candy, a candy cane, a pack of gum, and a really cozy pair of LazyOne Christmas Socks! Every gift was wrapped and a bow was placed on top. Why go to all the trouble to wrap all these presents? Because unwrapping gifts is SO much fun!
Ultimately our goal behind giving each kid a gift is simple: They matter to us. And when people matter to you, you go the extra mile and show them that you care in tangible ways. God gives to us in such a lavish way. We didn’t really need the color purple, but He gave it to us anyway. We didn’t really need a singing bird outside our window, but He gave it to us anyway. These kids might not need these gifts in the same way that they need their survival needs met. But we gave them to them anyway. Because good gifts make life special, worth enjoying, just like a C chord or a chocolate chip cookie. It’s a small way to bring joy. And small things add up.
The youth surprised us all by counting to three and in a unified voice expressing thanks.
On Christmas God gave us the most beautiful gift of all: His Son, Jesus, the Prince of Peace. And we want to love the way He does!
Merry Christmas!
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!
CFKWLG 2019 Was a Blast!
On November 23rd we hosted our second “Competition for Kids Who Like Games (and also for kids who do not like games)", or CFKWLG.
Competing can be a lot of fun. Some kids are naturally tuned to enjoy athletics, while others are not. And that is OK! Take our co-founders for example. Emily loves an intense game of dodgeball or basketball. Jennie, however, prefers trivia and creative challenges. Both enjoy competing, but not in the same way.
We created this event to appeal to both of these personality types. Learning to enjoy winning and losing, understanding that playing by the rules makes a victory sweeter, and working together with others toward a common goal are all important skills kids will need as adults. At this age, kids still learn a lot through play.
We wanted kids to understand that in life they won’t be on a team full of people who are exactly like them. At work, and even in their families, they’ll have to learn how to let someone else on their team shine so they can all find success. One minute a team is cheering their teammate who won them the dodgeball game, and the next they’re cheering the teammate who earned them 3 points in trivia. Everyone contributes.
As youth arrived and signed in they were divided into four different teams at random, each team assigned a different color: Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue.
Teams each had two volunteers as coaches. Together they came up with their team names and their team battlecries. We encouraged them to be as creative and silly as they wanted to be!
The teams chose the following names:
Yellow Team: The Millertary (named after Colton Miller)
Red Team: The Rojo Toros
Blue Team: The Blue Ice Giraffes
Green Team: The Turtle Strips
The teams competed in a series of games. We choose games that athletes and non-athletes alike can find a way to enjoy including some trivia, a dance-off, and dodgeball. By including games that appeal to different types of personalities, we were able to give each kid on the team a chance to contribute to the points their team earned.
Note: We used “regulation” dodgeballs (because apparently that’s a thing). They are supposed to sting less when a player is hit with them and be more fun to use.
The winner of the CFKWLG traveling trophy this year was the Blue Ice Giraffes!
Kids ended the evening with some candy bars and time to hang out together.
Events like this encourage teamwork and friendship. Competition can be a lot of fun when you play fair and laugh with your opponents. We hope the kids learned a little bit about teamwork, too.
We had a great time! A huge thank you to all of our volunteers: Stacy Rowson, Kirsten Furnal, Greg Eichenburg, Clinton Wallace, Eric Goodale, Mike & Emily Caulkins, and Jennie & Michael Koenig. You can watch the highlight video below:
Post Game Party 2019
What an awesome night with a bunch of great kids! We invited 7th-12th graders to a post game party on October 25th, 2019. After the football game youth began flooding into the High School Cafeteria. When they arrived they signed in with our volunteers and headed in for snacks, drinks, and dancing!
One thing is for sure: there was a lot of laughing at this event. One of the highlights for us occurred during the song “Don’t Stop Believin’”. Completely on their own, the entire group circled up to sing the song. Then they came together in the center for the chorus. It was encouraging to see all of them in sync for a moment. Clicks faded, divisions fell away, and they were just one big circle.
We love doing events like these because we see so many smiles. Life won’t always be easy or fun for these kids. But it is our hope that we can offer some enjoyment, some laughter, some fun that will help outweigh the bad days. God loves us so much and freely gives us good things. He asks us to love others the same way. So what we love to give them is a few hours of happiness. For a little while they are just kids having fun, wearing funny hats in front of a camera, and singing at the top of their lungs. Loved dearly by God, by us, and by their community.
We want to thank all our volunteers for this event. We couldn’t do it without you! Thank you also to PHS for allowing us to use the school facility. Thanks to Autumn Fennewald at Sweet Serendipity Photography for taking photos at the photo booth. She has a great eye! Thank you to Cass Lester for DJing for us again. He knows how to get the crowd moving! And a shout out to the Booster Club for bringing over a pile of delicious pork sandwiches, the kids were thrilled and so were the volunteers!
Although this was a 7th-12th grade event, we had very few high school students attend. We sort of expected that, but we wanted to try one more time to keep it open. We are taking notes about these things and plan to make some changes to future events, separating the age groups and finding unique ways to bless the high school students in Pleasantville as much as we are blessing the Middle Schoolers.
You can see a highlight video below!
If you would like to donate to help us throw more fun events like these, you can learn how here!
And just for fun, here’s the prep video from Emily and Jennie as well! :)
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!
Middle School Dance Night 2019
On September 27th, 2019, 7th and 8th graders in Pleasantville danced the night away at the Memorial Hall. We had almost 80 youth attend this high energy event.
We supplied heaps of hostess snacks, every Mountain Dew flavor known to man, and of course water and bananas. We love the reaction we get when kids come to the snack table with their little velcro wallets or lanyard money clips. They shyly ask us how much an oatmeal cream pie and a Dr. Pepper is. When we happily tell them, “its free!”, they don’t believe us at first! Their eyes light up as they yell “Thank you!”. We just love that!
The feedback we received from the kids was overwhelmingly great. They loved the music selection. Cass went out of his way to find songs kids requested, even searching out the censored versions of certain requested songs to make sure the music we played was appropriate.
We had many opportunities to get to know the kids who attended. We made sure we told them how much we cared about them, and how much we believe they matter. We reminded them that God loves them, and cares for them too.
We also gave away a 1lb container of FLARP!, which for those who don’t know, is basically a fart noise maker and middle school kids lose their minds over it. Tommy Booth was the lucky winner!
We had a fantastic night and we are looking forward to getting to know these wonderful kids more and more!
Thank you to our volunteers: Eric Goodale, Chelsea Bender, Autumn Fennewald, Michael and Jennie Koenig, Mike and Emily Caulkins, and Chad and Stacy Rowson. Thank you to the City of Pleasantville for the use of the Memorial Hall. Thank you to Cass Lester for his DJ services. Thanks Pleasantville Schools for helping us spread the word.
Giant Angry Birds Game
What do water balloons, stacks of boxes, and 500ft sling shots get you? GIANT ANGRY BIRDS GAME! And we had FUN! The youth chose to split up in boys vs girls teams and battle it out by launching water balloons at each other’s box towers, trying to knock them down and pop huge water balloons hidden inside them. It was a ton of fun. Everyone got a bottle of water and an icecream bar in between games. When we were finished, everyone worked together to pick up every single water balloon piece in the grass. What an awesome group of kids!
And of course, it ended with a pretty epic water balloon fight!
Flag Football and More
On July 10, 2019 Pleasantville Youth Initiative hosted a flag football game/hangout at the park in town. Youth had a blast playing flag football and extreme paper rock scissors!
We ended the event by making sure these awesome kids knew how much we cared about them. We reminded that they mattered to us, and to God. We had a lot of laughs, and everyone wanted to stay longer!
