[Music] hi I'm Carolyn Boston I got started in District 622 in in uh 2007 I started my first day on the first day of school that year and it was a good slide in that summer from my previous job which was a licensed child care provider in my home for 18 years one of my good friends worked for at Eagle Point and she let me know about a job opening so it was a great transition I retired in June of 2021 and I still wanted to be active and and do some work I like to keep busy because I can't see sitting at home uh doing nothing I really enjoy the people I work with and the kids and so being a sub is wonderful because I get to go to all seven elementaries and sometimes to the Middle School um so it's a nice variet the most rewarding part of my job is um is helping the kids that that maybe need um to make a connection maybe need need their day brightened some of our previous um Adventure connection students are now working in the program so that's a nice plus I feel like I'm still learning every day I did have some good mentors along the way when I found out that I uh was receiving this award I uh was completely um caught off guard unexpected but very felt very honored yeah nice one my favorite thing I enjoy about Adventure connection is um I like the craft aspect in playing board games with the kids and uh being silly we have different personalities we have the little ones that um just talk so grownup and seem like a little adult and then you have the little shy sweet ones that just smile they don't really talk much but uh and then and then of course there's the ones that like to do a little few things they shouldn't and you kind of got to turn away to laugh cuz it's kind of cute but yeah you have to deal with it the reason I I stayed working after I retired and and work so often is because um the staff that I work with um it's hard to say no to them because they um they need their time off and and I like I like keeping busy so that's one way for me to keep busy and I always have the option of saying sorry I'm not available I just heard um the other day that someone wanted to um to work in this program when they got older and they're probably in first grade so it's it's very fun to hear the summer program at Adventure connection I also sub at it's structured but structured differently and it's fun to see that kids that um don't go to the same schools come together in the summer and then the next summer they get to see each other again and and it's fun to see those connections those friendships from across the schools I I um enjoy the staff as much as I do the the children so it's been a great uh great fit for me I'm Angie paulus I'm a 6 two lifer went to school here K to 12 year after I graduated started working as a building supervisor held that job for many years until I took out a full-time role here I'm Don wheeler I've lived in the district since 1988 and My Girls attended the school district I had worked extensively and volunteered extensively in their classrooms in 2003 I started part-time in Information Services in the district and in 2007 I moved to community ed where I've been working in ever since Don and I are very interwined in our tasks um a lot of a lot of collaboration we work with all of the schools all parts of the schools office staff custodians teachers everything in the district just trying to get things to run smoothly I'm really proud of the work we've been doing to bring back programs that haven't been in the buildings for a while and I'm also really proud that we can maintain such a comprehensive um calendar of events and have it with pretty good accuracy because all the events include people and their schedules are very important I like it when things come together and fit when the work that we've done is successful and we see that things run well in the buildings most rewarding part of the job to me is that we can work with a lot of the new groups and organizations and try to figure out if we can accommodate their needs and try to get them scheduled into the facilities we've had so many great groups this last year and we keep getting more and more calls a time that I think we've been very creative is working with the summer schedule for the aquatics program or the swim lessons for the summer we are very limited on our pool usage for the summer and so we had to be creative on trying to figure out a different way of um organizing our swim lessons and started registration now so we will see how it goes but it was it was it was interesting trying to make it all fit yes when I found out that I won the award I was quite Sur surprised it's really nice to be noticed for what we do cuz a lot of what we do is so behind the scenes and kind of not seen by most people um and I feel that Don deserves this award so much the work that she does is incredible and people don't see how hard she works oh I know that Angie is so deserving of the award I am just honored to be included with her in receiving the award joh has many great strengths including her amazing organization skills high level of intelligence uh dedication to everything that she does um her demeanor so calm I'm quite fiery a lot of the times and she she keeps me calm and and then also that she puts up with me oh that is not hard I feel like we work really well together and she is so amazing at communication her emails are so considerate um even when she's trying to say something that's hard to write she has such compassion and kindness in her emails and it's just I always look at them and think I need to be better and do it more like Auntie's way I thoroughly enjoy working with facility use and Aquatics [Music] I am Jonah and I am in fifth grade and I go to Richardson Elementary my role models are my brother and my sister I look up to them a lot they are um in their 20s and they have graduated college I am very young in my family Jonah was little he was just very like go with the flow type of kid he um he was our wonderful surprise and so he has an older sister Melanie who's 25 um who was a kindergarten teacher and um a brother Dylan 22 my goal as a student is to just have younger generations of people at Richardson remember me by what I do at Richardson my name is Michelle Deets and I'm the site manager for Richardson Adventure connection I nominated Jonah for the Excel award because he is so involved with our community of kids here the community of school and through our service projects the outside Community around us he is always willing to do something for someone else Jonah is the epitome of kindness he helps all of the other children he's the first to volunteer to do anything he loves reading to the group he's actually the one that started that and now we actually have a signup chart cuz the other kids are following in suit and like to do it as well I remember uh at the beginning of the year that there was this teacher who used to come in and he would read books to us and I remember it being really fun Jonah has always likeed to read and he's likeed to be read too and so um back in the co days when we all had to be home his older sister had just graduated college and was um she was teaching in her class and she was trying to think about class to have kind of a little group time and she came up with Story Time with Jonah and so you know every day at 11:00 Jonah came with a book and sat down in front of her computer and they had Story Time with Jonah I don't remember any of this I don't remember um reading to her class I don't I don't remember it Jonah loves everything he loves to learn he likes to help people he's very caring so I can just I can see him being you know in an education role I can see him who knows he's really good at like math and he wants to learn about science so I think the world is his oyster when I grow up I would like to be an architect and I would like to go to college I see Jonah choosing a career where he can still be with people he's a very good communicator so I could see him he could do anything and do very well in I think part of the reason that I wanted to nominate him was just so that he can see how much um he has an effect on everybody else he does take all those people into consideration and he has a very huge heart I am very proud of winning this EXL award I was so surprised we happened to be on vacation and I happened to just look at my work email I'm not sure why and um yep and I saw the heading congratulations at the top and subject line and yeah we were all just thrilled and excited just from hearing the word award and in Excel I could tell that that's not a lot of people who would get it I'm very proud of myself for that my name is John trumbl and I am the newly elected president of the Little Canada Historical Society my name is Jordi te and I'm the adult and Senior programs coordinator for ISD 622 I love working with John because he always has um a lot of um stories I always appreciate in this day and age uh meeting other people who really care about their language and their culture and I see that in Jordy I uh met John years ago and then we met again and then we started talking about um potential partnership you know between uh the the community ad and also the lital Canada historical society and we um partner for two um for two events uh uh one in the summer that was a a movie at the Oakdale Discovery Center and then another one was the holiday uh tea that was here at the Little Canada Historical Society Oakdale was a a great surprise I think to a lot of people um the The Event Center there is is very impressive and uh Jordy had things very well organized I think people really enjoyed not only the film but just discovering that this place exists so I think that's a good thing for jordy's organization it raised awareness that this place exists and it's a very very pleasant um venue uh our te uh our tea was a little bit different here we had a lot of fun I ended up reading a story uh kind of at the last minute which was fine I'll get even with them someday uh we actually had several new members out of just that simple tea was a very pleasant experience uh I think for me and for the people from Little Canada that were here uh it was just such a great pleasure to see the smiles on a lot of these senior citizens faces and them engaging with people they may have just met at this tea for example and to discuss you know the the French French Canadian uh fact here in Little Canada but and beyond our borders uh because Little Canada uh and maple wood split that's a historical thing a while back and the the entire area is very French Canadian and um and I saw and overheard people talking about history and reminiscing and that just makes me smile in French uh that makes me smile is some we have a a French filmmaker that's coming back to Minnesota and so we're going to do another projection of her of a film here at the at the Little Canada Historical Society that's made 10th that we'll be doing this at 2:00 in the afternoon check the website first though cuz you know how things change the film is about the French Canadians and the French in the state of Minnesota and how we're all connected you my name is Patricia Peters I go by Patty uh raised my kids in this District as far as volunteering I did some volunteering while my children were in school but mainly when I get grandchildren I started volunteering more as my time was more available uh Meals on Wheels I started just about a year ago and um I have a regular route on Fridays I do the fifth Thursdays of the month and have filled in if other people are unable to uh be there for their Ro any given day my daughter works for the district and she suggested that I get involved um just because I like to volunteer and she thought it was something I would enjoy and I do she's not afraid to call on her mom and she knows that I like to volunteer I like to give back and so she's probably a neor me to be volunteer that I am and so yeah I probably have done you know a few extra things but it's really at my daughter's encouragement when I first started volunteering I didn't have a regular route I just did fillings and I I brought my grandson with me um a few times which he really enjoyed in the um people that we delivered to really enjoyed having a child visit as well I think my most rewarding thing with me on Wheels is is talking to people that I truly feel I maybe the only person they talk to in a given day and really not rushing uh away from them just letting them talk about anything they they feel what's on their mind at the time uh they're all so appreciative it's really opened my eyes at how fortunate I am I just you know that I still can get out and get around and um so many people are confined to their homes how they really need the help of others and you nutrition is so important so I really think the muss worlds program is wonderful uh you know making sure that people have a balanced meal in a give a day me I do Fridays U as a general role and the majority of my clients get an extra meal for the weekend so you know obviously they need um you know meals provided for them over the weekend as well well and although it's the same meals they get on a Friday it ensures that they they get something decent e over again I think making people happy and being kind to individuals is something we should all strive to do and when you see the smile on people's faces or they're waiting at the door for you you don't even have to bring the doorbell um they call you by name you know when you just introduced yourself to them one time I know there's many many people that do many great things I think just giving back to your community is important to we need more of that in this world today about me siia n I've lived in the district for about 20 25 years now my husband and I moved to Maplewood and raised our family here and uh have volunteered and worked in the district from time to time I'm involved and advocate for um the 622 Education Foundation um which primarily is an organization that supports um families and students in our district we have two main programs one of them is called the angel fund which really helps the uh social workers in all of our schools um provide things like boots and gloves and um things for families where there wouldn't be any other source uh when they need help and we also have the Award of Excellence for you know their hard work their work in the community um their persistence in perhaps helping their families along the way and um they all come from different backgrounds and it's really really amazing and uh inspiring um you never know what people are going through and what students are doing in their everyday lives um and so we get to hear about that collaboration for me is one of my favorite words if you can collaborate with people um you can go so much further it's just really important because we aren't we don't walk alone in this world the most rewarding part about being on the community Advisory Board is you really get to find out what is going on in our community and what the community community ed department is doing um before I became before I became a member of The Advisory Board I didn't know all that Community Ed does and it's antenna if you will uh is through throughout our community and there just so many opportunities for people to learn different things to um broaden their minds um and a lot of times for little to no cost we collaborated with St Marks right across the street to do a backpack program where uh kids could get a backpack uh and have food three meals for Saturday and Sunday um at no cost to them we had a coat giveaway that that winter that was so cold and I remember the first year we did it I think we had about 110 coats and in less than 2 hours they were all gone people had just come in from the community and it was donations from the community um we did a um prom dress giveaway again donations from we put the call out and said do you have something that you would be able to donate um and they did we took a couple of conference rooms in the in the office and they'd go in there and try on dresses and pick out the ones they wanted it was fantastic I mean and it was all because we just asked people to help those kinds of things those are the things I think that really make a difference in people's lives you know and it didn't cost us anything other than a little time the Betty Jane hat community service award is presented to an individual who demonstrates the same passion for our district around education volunteerism and community service that our BJ had oh it almost made me cry because I knew BJ and I knew I mean the idea that I would be compared to her is just like uh heartwarming so to be uh in that category and then you look back at all the things she did throughout her life it's just [Music] like yep that was a life I'm honored [Music]