For many youth, spending the evening in school does not sound fun. Thankfully, spending the evening in school at 180:Fuse is a different story. Just over a month ago we completed our eighth full year of 180:Fuse. We have been running around in local gymnasiums playing basketball, hoola-hooping, jump-roping, throwing pudding, pretending to be hungry hippos, human curling, and much more, and we feel like we’re just getting started.
A lot of great things can happen in a year, but they can go by quick. Before we move into summer and then into the next year of 180:Fuse, we wanted to pass along a few highlights from our full 16 – event year at Dolphin Senior Public School and Erin Mills Middle School. As you would expect, each month we had tons of fun at the events and we managed to build some great relationships along the way. There were lots of good memories and cool stories, but here’s four awesome things that happened this year at 180:Fuse that we wanted to share with you.
1. We delivered a positive, uplifting message to hundreds of youth.
This past year we had over 300 unique youth attend a 180:Fuse event. While we love to have fun (even if it means being pied in the face or being thrown at with dodgeballs), we believe each 180:Fuse event is a time to instill positive and uplifting values into every youth in attendance. At each event we had what we call, “Communication Time”, and we attempted to do just that. We talked about the importance of building bridges instead of walls, meaning we must work together and respect each other no matter our differences, not turn people away because they’re different. We talked about being authentic and the difference between real friends and fake friends. We talked about the difference between tollbooths and road blocks and encouraged them to treat obstacles like a tollbooth, paying the price and then moving forward. You get the idea! We use images to go along with all of our points and we find it works great to get youth to remember what we talked about. We believe it’s our job to mentor each youth the best we can, and Communication Time is a huge step in that direction.
2. We had a Family 180:Fuse
On January 31st, 2019 we ran our first ever Family 180:Fuse. If you’re wondering what that is, it’s all in the name! We switched from a Saturday night to a Thursday night and we invited not only every middle school student at Erin Mills, but also their parents. The night was run almost exactly the same as a regular 180:Fuse night, except it gave youth and parents the opportunity to face off and also work together depending on the activity. Overall, the night was a huge success. We had around 100 people in attendance as well as an amazing team of volunteers and staff from the school. The goal of the night was to bring families together and offer them something fun to do, no matter their age. It also served as a great insight for parents into what we do at our events. My personal highlight of the night was hearing students cheer when they found out they got to dump pudding on their parents faces. That’s what family is for right?
3. We had amazing volunteer leaders.
Did I mention already that we have an AMAZING team of volunteers? I am constantly reminded that without this incredible group of leaders, 180:Fuse would not exist. Our staff this past year consisted of four employees. Put the four of us in a gym with 80 middle school students and then have us try to run a game; probably not going to go well. Our team members serve as team coaches, station leaders, candy sellers, basketball players, and basically anything that we need them to be on a given night. We have high school leaders, local community leaders, and even some leaders who commute from over an hour outside of town. They are loving, servant-hearted, and committed to mentorship and the vision of Global 180. If you ever see one of them at an event, be sure to say thanks, they deserve it!
4. One of our own high school leaders PAID for an event… sort of.
As you know, everything costs money, and 180:Fuse events are no different! At the end of this year, due to the end of a recent grant, it didn’t appear that we were going to be able to run our last two events of the year. While we were disappointed, the reality of being a charity is that funding is often challenging to secure. As we were beginning to discuss cancelling the events, one of our awesome high school students decided they weren’t okay with seeing our year end early. Together, we applied with this student for a “Taking It Global” grant from the Federal government. She came in to 180:Merge on her spare time (which there isn’t much of as a high school senior) and wrote the grant application with us. Our hope was that Taking It Global would see the need for these events in our community. Thankfully, they did, and our events were back on! We are so thankful for this student and her extraordinary commitment to 180:Fuse. Without her spearheading the application for this grant, we would not have been able to run our events, it’s that simple. She volunteered with us for all four years that she was in high school and we are so proud to see her beginning university in September 2019.
We hope from these few stories that you get a sense of the kind of awesome things happening at 180:Fuse and with Global 180 as a whole throughout the year. We are looking forward to what’s ahead and are so excited to launch another year of program in the Fall of 2019. Be sure to check back soon for more updates.