October, 2007
Dear Volunteers and Parents:
The Board of Directors of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter is pleased to welcome you to the AMIGOS family. During this next year you will be engaged in many new relationships; rich in diversity, support, and challenge. Upon completion of the training cycle you will join a large, extended family of AMIGOS alumnae crisscrossing the nation who are giving back to their communities with the leadership and initiative that had its roots in their first AMIGOS experience.
You are beginning a journey about which you know very little, with veteran volunteers, families, and Board members whom you do not know well, to travel to a destination not yet determined, for purposes and to do work still not clearly defined. No wonder that, right now, you may be feeling a bit anxious! We understand that feeling, because we have stood in your shoes. Yet you have apparently been inspired by the gain in leadership skills and personal growth testified to by volunteers and parents much like yourselves, and who all want for you what they found so meaningful in their own experience.
We understand that just as the AMIGOS experience is new to the volunteers, parents will also need guidance as their volunteer progresses through the program. It is with this understanding that we have created the Family Resource Handbook, which we hope will serve as a useful reference tool. As the training year progresses you will receive additional information you can add to your handbook. You will also have access to our Chapter web site (
www.scvcamigos.org) to keep abreast of the Chapter calendar and all the latest news that is relevant to both parents and volunteers.Our Chapter is proud of its training program, and we believe that it is imperative for volunteers to attend all of the training meetings, retreats, and functions, in order to receive the maximum benefit from training. When volunteers skip meetings, they miss out on important information and become only partially trained, which compromises their safety while in Latin America. In fact, we feel so strongly about this point that our Training Directors will not endorse any volunteer who demonstrates lack of motivation through poor attendance and participation. Parents, please help your Volunteer arrange his or her schedule to attend all meetings and retreats. The meetings will be interesting, enjoyable, and above all, useful and informative towards preparing for the summer experience.
We also hold several parent meetings throughout the year. These provide parents with the information required to support their Volunteer during training, and also help prepare parents for the summer experience while their son or daughter is in Latin America. Our Chapter calendar contains all of the dates for the volunteer training and parent meetings. It also includes many important deadlines by which families must submit paperwork or fees to the Chapter. Please mark all of these dates on your family calendar, right now!
The Chapter is administered by a volunteer Board, all of whom have had experience with the program and are strongly committed to its mission and core values. We know that the parent experience can be bittersweet. There is much pride when your adolescent wants to take on such independence and leadership. Yet Latin America is far away, and you must let go for a whole 6-8 weeks with little communication and great confidence in the AMIGOS organization and in the training your son/daughter has received to keep them safe and healthy. We congratulate you for your bravery up to this point. We promise you that in addition to your brave heart, by June you will have had all your questions answered and will have received complete information on all aspects of the program. In order to reach that goal, we need your full participation and attendance at parent information meetings. We need you to be attentive to your email, since that is the method we use to send reminders or special information.
We hope that your family’s experience will be so valuable that you will join those of us who work hard to see other teenagers and their families share the AMIGOS experience. Please keep in mind throughout the year that there are always ways to participate in our Board activities after your volunteer arrives home. We hope that after you see how much growth occurs over this next year, you too will feel as passionate as we do about helping to sustain the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of AMIGOS.
We are excited about this year's group of volunteers, with all of their enthusiasm and compassion. As we begin another AMIGOS year, we look forward to getting to know all of you. You have a roster with all of our contact information. Please feel free to call any member of the Board at any time during the year, if you have questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
The 2007 /2008 Santa Clara Valley Chapter Board