Current Community Projects

Camp Knock Knock

Our signature project since 1998, Camp Knock Knock is a weekend of healing and support for families with children who have experienced the death of a loved one. This collaboration between JLCV and the Visiting Nurse Association’s Hospice of the Champlain Valley, was created to fill a recognized need in our community to support grieving families. Camp Knock Knock was named in honor of Alisha Reis, a delightful child and relentless purveyor of knock-knock jokes, who was cared for by the Hospice of the Champlain Valley. Alisha died of a brain tumor in 1988, and we strive to honor her undaunted spirit and tremendous

courage with Camp Knock Knock.

Each June, JLCV gathers with skilled counselors, professionals, and community volunteers for a weekend at the YMCA’s Camp Abnaki in North Hero, to provide a safe environment for families who are experiencing the natural grieving process. Over 430 campers from all parts of Vermont have been helped over the past eleven years. Age specific workshops are combined with traditional camp activities, such as arts and crafts, treasure hunts, canoeing and campfire sing-alongs, to offer a substantive and fun experience for our guests. In preparation for Camp every JLCV volunteer must attend a daylong training session. The training includes teambuilding exercises, communication skills and understanding the stages of childhood grief.

Camp Knock Knock creates an environment for adults and children to relax with others who may have a similar loss, story, or experience. For many children, Camp Knock Knock is the one place they do not feel alone in their grief. As parents tell us, the carefully designed activities throughout the weekend provide their children with the skills and outlet to open a dialogue, which continues long after camp is over. One parent shared this insight in a Camp evaluation:

“The small group my child was in was magical. So much planning obviously went into arranging all the activities around each child’s own story..... as a parent, I have never felt so supported. Your Camp truly fulfills its mission to be healing and rejuvenating”.

Behavior Therapy & Psychotherapy Center

The Behavior Therapy and Psychotherapy Center (BTPC) is a non-profit outpatient mental health clinic. The center was established in 1972 as a training clinic for students in the Clinical Psychology Program at the University of Vermont. Services are provided by doctoral level licensed clinical psychologists or by pre-doctoral clinicians who are completing their psychology training.  Over 15,000 clients have been served since the clinic was founded. 

BTPC is unique in its emphasis on providing quality community services to underserved populations, including traumatized children, families in conflict, sexually abused children, and children with ADHD, anxiety disorders and depression, and individuals with HIV.  In addition, the center currently provides mental health services to a large number of refugees through their “Connecting Cultures” program. Many of the patients are low-income individuals, and the center offers free care or a sliding fee to the uninsured.  

JLCV members will redecorate the waiting room and one or more of the patient rooms in order to transform a very institutional-like setting into one that is warm, welcoming, calming and reflective of the multi-cultural populations that the center serves.

Ronald McDonald House

The Ronald McDonald House offers a home-away-from home for families whose children are receiving inpatient care at Fletcher Allen Health Care and who live some distance from Burlington.  Almost all of the meals residents receive are donations from community. JLCV members prepare and deliver two complete meals per month.

Ronald McDonald House Charities has been a fortunate recipient of the spirited and giving nature of the Junior League of Champlain Valley. Not only have they been reliable and generous with the provision of dinners for the families staying at the house, on a steady twice-a-month schedule, but they also were able to deliver dinners every week at a time when we were under major construction and the kitchen was out of service. Above and beyond this, the members took on the project of redecorating our playroom. They started with an ordinary room with toys in it and a created, from top to bottom, a delightful, appealing, child-oriented playspace, complete with reading bench, a generous bookcase, and playhouse. We are indebted to this wonderful group for directing their energies to helping us meet our mission of serving families in need of lodging, comfort and support.  

--  Bobbie Moser Ronald McDonald House

Teddy Bears for Children who Witness Domestic Violence

This year, we will be making special teddy bears for the 100-150 children who stay at the Women Helping Battered Women (WHBW) shelter each year.  The children who arrive at the shelter have been through so much, and many are unable to bring anything from home.  Our hope is that the bears will provide a small comfort to each child, and be something to call their own.

WHBW’s mission is to support, identify options and advocate for those who have experienced domestic violence and serve as a catalyst for social change.  Formed in 1974, WHBW has evolved into the largest service provider for battered women in Vermont. In addition to providing emergency shelter and housing advocacy, WHBW offers 24-hour hotline services, legal advocacy, programs for children and many educational outreach programs. WHBW believes that all women and children have the right to live without fear of battering - sexual, physical, emotional, or financial.

JLCV members will also donate personal care items for the moms and children – things like toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, kids shampoo, etc.  This project addresses one of the top five community need priorities identified in our needs assessment and survey last year. 

Scholarship

JLCV offers an annual $1000 educational scholarship to a single parent attending an accredited postsecondary school.   Recipients are selected based on the following criteria:

• Reside in Addison, Chittenden, Franklin, Grand Isle, or Lamoille County
• Be a single parent with primary custody of at least one minor child 17 years of age or younger
• Demonstrate academic achievement (minimum 2.5 Cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale)
• Demonstrate financial need
• Demonstrate education/work ethic

Done-in-a-Day Projects

Each year, JLCV members organize and participate in short-term volunteer projects that can be accomplished in just a day.  Projects respond to a variety of community needs.  Past “Done-in-a-Day” projects include participating in “Polar Express”,  Habitat for Humanity,  H.O. Wheeler Family Fun Festival, and food drives for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf, just to name a few!  Other projects include making and filling holiday stockings for children at McAuley Square and leading craft nights for the children at the Committee on Temporary Shelter.

Kids in the Kitchen

Kids in the Kitchen is an initiative of the Association of Junior Leagues International (AJLI) to help communities address the urgent issues surrounding childhood obesity poor nutrition. JLCV members volunteer in classrooms and in other community nonprofits to teach children how to prepare healthy food. More information about the Kids in the Kitchen can be found at http://kidsinthekitchen.ajli.org/.