September
Spotlight
The Webb International Center for Dyslexia, Inc. (WICD) exists to help children, parents, teachers and other adults involved in the lives of children come to understand that children learn in many different ways. WICD is dedicated to helping people with dyslexia and other school-based learning difficulties overcome their challenges while simultaneously challenging their strengths. WICD seeks to perpetuate Dr. Webb's teaching philosophy that "preservation of a child's self esteem is as critical as learning to read". It too is a life-long skill.
Webb International was established in 1990 by Billy Baldwin, a graduate of Curry College and its Program for Advancement in Learning which was founded by Dr. Webb in 1969. The program, affectionately called PAL was the first program in the United States for college able dyslexics. When Billy graduated from Curry, he asked the following questions of Dr. Webb: "why did I have to wait until college to discover how I learned best?" and "shouldn't there be a way for people to learn about how they learn when they are struggling at a much younger age?" Those questions resulted in the birth of WICD. Today, we work to try and create a paradigm shift in the way people understand and teach dyslexics.
Currently, WICD is working to help people and their children who are court involved and may have learning and reading issues understand their legal right to be taught the way they learn from the age of three until they are twenty-two years old, so that they get either their high school diploma or a GED. WICD also helps deserving individuals access an appropriate education.
WICD's other current initiative is to bring together educators and administrators in a non-threatening atmosphere to discuss differing learning strategies while Dr.Webb and WICD staff member's can discuss Dr. Webb's methodology of "metacognition" (the understanding of how your brain works best) so they can better understand their role in enabling students to learn to the best of their abilities. |
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Collaborating: Doing More with Less
by Allen Larson, David Willard and Jeffrey Luce
Executive Committee
Cape Cod Center for Sustainability
For several years now, finding ways to do more with less has been a chief strategic concern of Cape-based nonprofits, local governmental agencies, businesses, and area families. Demographic data indicate that the Cape's costs of living and operating an enterprise, be it for profit or not for profit, have steadily increased. The number of year-round residents has risen too, as has the accompanying need and demand for housing, health care, employment opportunity, education and training, recreation, and basic governmental services like police and fire protection.
Traditionally, local service organizations have relied on the generosity of public and private grant givers, donors, and volunteers to supplement the resources they've needed to support their many diverse missions. Oftentimes, large and established businesses were the base of this community support. And it is ironic that as the Cape's population has increased, and as the presence of large national enterprises has risen, the number of locally based, locally committed businesses has declined. And as it has, the ones that are active, regional, and successful receive more requests for assistance. They, too, wonder how to increase the efficiency of the donations they provide.
For the past decade, we've been observing these trends as well as the many truly Herculean efforts local nonprofits have been making to fulfill their missions while also dealing with increasing financial strain. To do so, they have realized operational efficiencies by upgrading their technology as well as their ability to use it. And they've done so while remaining committed to their core missions of service and attention to individual cases. By expanding their capacities using technology, the Cape's nonprofit sector has enhanced its ability to communicate real-time information about its diverse range of social concerns as well as ways that we might respond to these problems as a community.
Ironically, however, as the nonprofit sector has generally applied technology in ways that continue to improve our quality of life, there is a growing awareness of a widening divide that separates organizations which are able to leverage the benefits of technology advances from those who are not as yet proficient or financially able to acquire the equipment and training they desire. MORE
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The Need for Fresh Air
by Allen Larson
 Since moderating the wind farm "discussion" in August and writing about it in the past newsletter, I've received several comments. I've reduced them to the five points that follow. Admittedly, there is no statistical validity which supports any of them. And I also acknowledge that the culling of these replies by me is one that is filtered through my own perspectives, for good or bad. I'm not claiming in any way that the following points are objective but it was very interesting to see how they took shape as the comments gathered.
First, both those who favor the wind farm as well as those oppose it express dismay at the money that has been spent by both sides to this point in the process. It's reminiscent of the Cold War's "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD) that was an appropriate anagram then and is equally applicable now. The comparison of the money spent in the wind farm process as contrasted with the money needed in the entirely unrelated context of Barnstable County's human services prompted many replies. MORE
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All In A 'Day in the Life'
Submitted by our Readers |
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Tracking Turtles
 Do you ever wonder what happened to the turtles that have been rehabilitated here on Cape Cod? Where they me be and do they come back this way at all? Well now you can find out the answers to those questions! Check out this nifty website and see where these turtles are!
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Community Events RSS Feed
 RSS feeds are now available from sustaincapecod.org! RSS, which stands for different things depending on who you ask, is a way to get all kinds of information delivered to your desktop or added to a blog or Web site.
We have provided this with of Events Calendar and plan to add it to other parts of our sight shortly. To subscribe to the Events Calendar RSS Feed, simply add the following URL (http://www.snap2help.com/eventfeed.php) to your news reader as a new channel or feed.
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Send Us Your Stuff!
 The newsletter editors are looking to share funny, warm, or touching stories from nonprofits and volunteers from their daily experiences from the office, board and committee meetings, or out in the field.
We'll make a $25 donation for any stories or photographs that we publish. MORE
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