Hopa Mountain News Blog

Renowned physicist and popular science writer Carl Sagan argues that all young children are budding scientists. “Children ask why the sun is yellow, or what a dream is, or how deep you can dig a hole, or when is the world’s birthday, or why we have toes.” Children explore scientific concepts and ask pertinent questions about the world around them before ever entering their first classroom. Parents have a wonderful opportunity to strengthen this sense of curiosity about the universe. Summer provides a great time and space to cultivate literacy and reduce potential reading loss.

Early exposure to math and science concepts motivates children to understand complex formulas, to explore the workings of the universe, and to pursue knowledge of the natural world. And “early” is never too soon. Parents have the power to influence their children’s educational success starting from ages 0-3. Research reveals that this is the most important age range when it comes to building important connections in the brain and developing critical thinking skills.

A child’s interest in math and science aids this development, increasing the potential for future success. By encouraging children to succeed in school, we encourage them to progress into adulthood with rewarding careers and healthy lives.

Bozeman nonprofit Hopa Mountain works throughout rural and tribal communities across the state. Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers program teams with doctors, nurses, and other citizen leaders in communities throughout Montana to distribute children’s books, tips on language and literacy development, and science learning information. StoryMakers partners encourage parents to create rich learning environments in the home.

Jennifer Stepanek of the Mathematics and Science Education Center stresses the importance of family participation in the learning process: “When parents participate, they show their children at school activities are interesting and important. Students have an opportunity to observe and model their parents’ positive attitudes and behaviors. With attention and praise, parents validate and encourage their children’s efforts.”

Every family can introduce their children to a healthy and happy future. Exploring math and science as a family doesn’t have to feel hard or complicated—simple tips make teaching your children fun, straight-forward, and relaxed.

For instance, you can talk with your children using math and science words—like “more than,” or “less than”—playing number games, reading books, and telling stories full of patterns, numbers, weather, and wildlife.

Here are some tips to help parents support math and science literacy at home this summer:

• As the weather warms, you might try taking your children on a hike to explore the natural miracles the season has to offer.
o Observe the budding flowers and the birth of new, young wildlife.
o What do your children notice about the changes taking place? Keep a journal of what you see together.
o A fun way to introduce scientific concepts to your children is to talk with them about the plants and animals, the cycle of seasons, and the changing temperatures.

• Planting a garden together can be a wonderful way to explore the world around you.
o Count and Identify seeds as you place them in soil. Talk about what a seed needs to grow and thrive.
o Will this plant produce food for us? Discuss what else is growing in your neighborhood. Can you find any of these fruits and vegetables at the local farmer’s market or the grocery store?
o Ask and answer silly questions about the process as you go, allowing yourself and your children to have fun as you learn new concepts together. They will love to help you outside and in the kitchen as they discover how exciting and hands-on math and science can be.
Spending time together doing such positive activities–talking, sharing adventures, and getting fresh air and exercise–helps your child build a strong, healthy body and mind.

Parents want the best for their babies and children. Hopa Mountain executive director Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer reminds families that “with the right information and resources, every parent can provide their children with strong support as they learn and grow.” According to education professors Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen, children who read just six books over summer vacation “maintain the level of reading skills they achieved during the preceding school year.” If children read more than this, they will make even more impressive gains. (“Bridging the Summer Reading Gap,” Scholastic Instructor 2003, May/June).

In addition to the StoryMakers program, Hopa Mountain also disseminates positive, useful resources and information about early learning through its Together Campaign. A comprehensive web site, complete with tips, PSAs, videos, and links to additional resources offers parents the opportunity to lead their children into successful and stable futures. Hopa Mountain’s many partners throughout the region work to ensure that children in Montana grow into happy, healthy, and successful citizens. Parents want the best for their babies and children. With the right information and resources, Hopa Mountain believes that every parent can provide their children with strong support for happiness and wellbeing. To learn more, please visit hopamountain.org/together/ for friendly tips and information about what you can do to build a healthy and happy future with your child together everyday.

Hopa Mountain invests in citizen leaders who are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development in their home towns. Through its seven core initiatives, Hopa Mountain helps citizen leaders further develop their skills to deliver strength-based programs, services, and organizational efforts that meet needs expressed in their individual communities. Hopa Mountain matches resources of all kinds to rural and tribal citizen leaders to help them achieve their goals. To learn more about Hopa Mountain and its Story Makers program, please visit www.hopamountain.org or call 406-586-2455.

Hopa Mountain and Sage Solutions will present the 2 day workshop, “Creating Boards that Lead: A Discourse on Nonprofit Board Development, Board Operations and Responsibilities” on Friday, April 5 and Saturday, April 6 in Bozeman at the C’Mon Inn. Friday’s session is from 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. and Saturday’s session is from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Presented by Terry Profota, President of Sage Solutions, and Dr. Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, Executive Director of Hopa Mountain, this board development workshop is offered as a learning tool for current members of non-profit Boards of Directors or individuals interested in becoming a Board Member and will focus on roles and responsibilities of nonprofit board members and energizing boards. All necessary workshop handouts and related materials will be supplied at the workshop.

Hopa Mountain is a Bozeman-based non-profit organization that supports rural and tribal community leaders, adults and youth, in their efforts to improve education, ecological health, and economic development (www.hopamountain.org). Hopa Mountain provides citizen leaders with training, mentoring, and networking opportunities. Sage Solutions is a consulting practice led by Terry Profota that specializes in organizational effectiveness, program development, and Board relations. Workshop Fee: $35/members, $45/nonmembers. For more information or to register: Call Hopa Mountain at 586-2455 or email bsawyer@hopamountain.org

Educator and entrepreneur, Charles Best leads DonorsChoose.org, an online charity connecting classrooms in need with donors who want to help. Find out how Best went from teaching in his own classroom in the Bronx to impacting more than 6.6 million students in America and has currently distributed over $165,000,000. Best will speak at Montana State University in Bozeman on Tuesday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m. in Bozeman. His lecture is open to the public and is free-of-charge.

Best was an elementary educator, who after teaching in the inner city Bronx for five years, decided that current models of philanthropy in education were simply not getting the job done. His passion to decrease national disparity in classroom tools and funding led him to create his own grassroots company, DonorsChoose, which has since become one of Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative New Companies.

Best started DonorsChoose from his classroom in 2000, marketing his charity through hand written letters before he could afford to hire a web designer. DonorsChoose asks teachers for specific needs within their classrooms that they are unable to gain funding and posts these needs to its website. Potential donors can go on DonorsChoose.org and choose what classroom projects they would like to financially support. When the quota for a specific project posting is met, the children involved send letters or pictures of thanks to the donors who raised the funds to make it happen.

Since its inception, DonorsChoose has become the gold standard of direct-philanthropy in K-12 education in the United States, with 40% of public schools posting and receiving funding through its foundation. DonorsChoose has set the lofty goal of inspiring 1 million people to give $100 million to classroom projects from 100 percent of our country’s high-poverty public schools and all in one school year. They are well on their way to achieving it.

In an interview with Forbes Magazine, Best noted that giving doesn’t have to be motivated by the amount of money you have in your pocket, nor does it have to be impersonal. “Imagine someone with $10 finding a classroom project that speaks to them personally, seeing where their money is going and realizing that they don’t need to be a millionaire to make a difference,” Best said.

This event is sponsored by ASMSU, Office of the President, Hopa Mountain, College of Business, MSU Parent and Family Association.

Paul Schmitz, author of “Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up,” will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, in the MSU Procrastinator Theater. Hopa Mountain and the Montana State University Leadership Institute will host the event. A reception and book signing will follow. The Procrastinator Theater is located in the Strand Union Building.

Schmitz is the CEO of Public Allies, a national organization committed to building leadership skills in all people. The organization says it believes everyone can make a difference and work to inspire more citizens to believe in themselves, step up and act. The organization says it has advanced leadership of more than 4,000 young adults.

Schmitz founded Public Allies in 1993, and was appointed CEO in 2000. He blogs on leadership for the Washington Post and serves on various development and advocacy committees.

Schmitz graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a degree in political science and received that university’s “Graduate of the Last Decade” alumni award. He was selected as a Next Generation Leadership Fellow by the Rockefeller Foundation, was recognized by the Nonprofit Times as one of the 50 most powerful and influential nonprofit leaders in the country, and is a recipient of Fast Company magazine’s Social Capitalist Award for Innovation.

Hopa Mountain will also host an hour-long conversation with Schmitz at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, in the Bozeman Public Library’s main meeting room. Schmitz will discuss the work of community leadership, the role of nonprofits and national initiatives that are coming from the White House Council on Community Solutions.

One of our greatest rewards at Hopa Mountain is serving citizen leaders in our rural and tribal communities. We appreciate everything these remarkable citizens do throughout the Northern Rockies to improve education, ecological health, and economic development.

In 2012, Hopa Mountain’s staff members were able to invest in hundreds of rural and tribal citizen leaders who are improving education, ecological health, and economic development and served more than 15,000 children through our cradle to college education initiatives. It is an exciting time and this is important work as rural and tribal citizen leaders are strengthening community self-reliance, livable wage jobs, education, and services.

Some of the highlights from our year included:

Launching Indigenous Scholars of Promise to help high-achieving high school juniors and seniors prepare for college. Hopa Mountain staff are currently piloting this initiative with 20 students on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations. All of our graduating seniors were able to gain scholarships to selective universities. It is our dream to expand this program to serve more students throughout Montana in the year ahead.

Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers program provided low-income parents of children ages 0-5 with books and early literacy resources to support them in creating a rich home learning environment. StoryMakers now serves 9,500 low resource children and their families in 33 communities and all 7 Indian reservations in Montana. Through Community Teams of local citizen leaders, StoryMakers encourages parents to read and tell stories every day to their preschool children, beginning the first day of their children’s lives.

Please consider a gift this holiday season to Hopa Mountain that will enable us to sustain and expand the support citizen leaders need — to provide parents with early reading resources, develop after school science education programs for teens, support innovative citizen leader projects, and build stronger nonprofit organizations. You can donate online at http://www.hopamountain.org/donate.php Your generosity will ignite hope in others. Thank you.

Join Hopa Mountain for a benefit concert with Singer-Songwriter Judy Fjell on Wednesday, December 19 at 7 p.m. in the Emerson Cultural Center’s Weaver Room.
Singer-Songwriter and native Montanan Judy Fjell brings a delightful mix of energy and humor to the stage. She is an accomplished vocalist and guitarist, a beloved teacher and music minister, and someone who always loves to share her musical gifts. In her forty year performing career she has written over two hundred songs, released twenty album collections for adults and children, toured throughout the United States, and has been invited to teach and perform several times in Japan. In this benefit concert for Hopa Mountain she will perform many audience favorites along with poignant seasonal songs such as “In the Winter” (Bird Return CD), and original guitar solo selections from her upcoming instrumental CD. Tickets for the event are $10 and can be purchased at the door. Doors will open at 6 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

Hopa Mountain, a Bozeman-based nonprofit organization, will host a free-of-charge Human Rights Day celebration beginning at 7 p.m. on December 10 at the Bozeman Public Library. Human Rights Day presents an opportunity, every year, to celebrate human rights, highlight a specific issue, and advocate for the full enjoyment of all human rights by everyone everywhere.

This year, the spotlight is on the rights of all people — women, youth, minorities, persons with disabilities, Indigenous people, the poor and marginalized — to make their voices heard in public life and be included in political decision-making.

Three speakers will explore the topic of human rights from different perspectives on the evening of December 10. From 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. Linda M. Young, Associate Professor Dept. of Political Science, Montana State University will address the topic of Global Hunger and the Right to Food. From 7:30 to 8:00 p.m., Tom Jacobsen, CEO, Rural Dynamics, Inc. will discuss Creating Changes through Financial Security and Economic Opportunity for Low Income Families. From 8:00 to 8:30 p.m. Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, Executive Director Hopa Mountain will speak about Education as a Human Right.

Hopa Mountain would appreciate a donation of food for the Gallatin Valley Food Bank that evening. Hopa Mountain invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders, adults and youth, that are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development (www.hopamountain.org). For more information, please call 586-2455 or email info@hopamountain.org.

Registration is open for Hopa Mountain’s fall Youth Leadership Programs in Gallatin and Park Counties that begin September 8 for teens ages 13-17. These two teen groups meet weekly in Bozeman and Livingston and work on initiatives that enable area youth to build personal leadership skills while make a difference through community service.  “We look forward to working with area teens throughout the school year on service projects of their own design.  This year, there will be a special emphasis on college preparation in addition to community service in both programs,” said Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, executive director of Hopa Mountain. 

Gallatin County teens will meet in Bozeman on Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. at The Rock Youth Center, located at 214 N 11th Avenue.  Park County teens meet on Tuesday afternoons from 4 – 5:30 p.m. at the Livingston Public Library.   Meetings include planning time for projects, team building activities, positive youth mentoring and time to socialize and build friendships.  Ongoing, long-term service projects that these groups are working on include a video project with the Bozeman Police Department raising awareness about distracted driving and a historical Geocaching tour of Livingston in conjunction with the Yellowstone Gateway Museum. All program activities are free of charge thanks to business, foundation, and individual member support, enabling all teens to participate. 

Hopa Mountain is a Bozeman-based nonprofit organization that invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders who are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development.

Hopa Mountain’s youth leaders invite other teens to learn more this unique service learning and college access program.  For more information about opportunities for teens or get involved, contact Rich Collins, youth leadership program coordinator at Hopa Mountain, at 406-586-2455, or go to www.hopamountain.org/youthblog for a registration form. You can also visit our Hopa Mountain Group page or “Like” Hopa Mountain’s Youth Leadership Programs’ page.

Modern Native Warriors, a new 33 minute documentary film created by Veronica Maday, will be shown at the Bozeman Public Library on Thursday, July 26 at 5 p.m. followed by a discussion with the filmmaker. This documentary explores the identity of Native American Veterans as they relate to the history of American colonial expansion and modern military service. In the film, Maday personalizes the individual struggles of veterans from various Indian tribes and shares insight to the paradox of why Native people would serve a country that historically attempted to terminate them. It follows a Lakota/Ojibwa woman who searches for other native veterans to discuss how they feel about their service. The result is a journey of discovery and personal growth/healing.

Filmmaker Veronica Maday is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and was raised in Northern Wisconsin. Maday works as the Executive Director for the Indian Nonprofit Alliance; an organization dedicated to assisting tribal nonprofits in the management and leadership areas of capacity building, and providing a link for rural nonprofits to the funding sector. There is no charge for the public screening of this film and everyone is invited to attend.

Please join us for Hopa Mountain’s upcoming virtual seminar, Understanding Nonprofit Insurance on Monday, July 23 at 10 a.m. with Ted Fedyk.

In this virtual seminar, learn what is covered under “Board of Directors and Officers” liability insurance and general liability insurance and how to protect yourself as a volunteer doing good. You will also have the opportunity to get your questions answered by insurance expert, Ted Fedyk. This session is open to everyone and especially recommended for nonprofit Board and staff members. Virtual seminar instructor, Ted Fedyk, is the founder and president of Outdoor Educators Insurance & Risk Management. To participate in this virtual seminar, please email info@hopamountain.org. On July 23 at 10 a.m., please dial 1-213-342-3000 and enter passcode 189808#.

Topics to be covered during this seminar:

Types of Liability Insurance:
Directors and Officers
General Liability
Professional
Sexual Misconduct
Employment Practices
Accident Medical

How to Protect Volunteers

Workers Compensation- What is it and when is it Needed

Start Up Average Annual Costs Of Insurance

Real Life Claims Examples

Following this seminar, you can contact Ted at:

Ted Fedyk CPCU
Vice President
Payne / OEI
962 Stoneridge Dr., Suite 2
Bozeman, MT 59714
406-551-1401 (Phone) /406-532-5943 (Fax)

We look forward to connecting with you on Monday at 10 a.m.!