Current News

Macon Phillips and Emily Price were married on May 30th. Both DREAM supporters, Macon was one of our founding staff members, bringing together our first ideas for Camp and High Adventure programming. His big dreaming has helped us develop an exciting and successful adventure component at DREAM. Macon & Emily moved to Washington DC a few years ago where they have given up their floors to host two DREAM trips. Emily helps finance affordable housing development and Macon is the head of the Obama Administration's New Media office.

Wedding goers traveled in DREAM Bus style from downtown Burlington to the ceremony at Shelburne Farms. Macon & Emily listed DREAM on their registry, generating over ten donations to support Camp.

Congratulations Macon & Emily!

By Faith Griffiths, Bennington DREAMer


On Sunday, May 17th, Bennington College was host to an event unlike any the school had ever seen before. Thirteen college mentors from the Bennington DREAM Program, along with eleven mentees from the Willowbrook Housing Community planned, organized, and presented The Viking Cabaret Dinner. For two fun filled hours, DREAMers fed and entertained their guests with eleven original acts from mentors and mentees. These acts included poetry readings, photography, visual artwork, lacrosse tricks, skits, and tap dances. Guests included family and friends from Willowbrook, as well as Bennington students and members of the Bennington community at large. Mentors and their ready-to-help friends, spent the better half of the day setting up tables in the Greenwall Auditorium, decorating the space with balloons and clotheslines full of their mentees artwork, and cooking up burgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, carrot ginger soup, greens, watermelon, cantaloupe, homemade lemonade, and of course, The Willowbrook DREAM Program’s favorite snack, midnight cowboy cookies.

The Cabaret Dinner was a huge success for several reasons: 1) With tickets and donations, mentors and mentees raised over $700, which will goes back to their program so they can do more activities, trips, and events with the children in the program. 2) The Cabaret Dinner was the first time many of the mentees had the chance to perform and present creative works that they did themselves and could be proud of. The initial goal of the event was for mentors to share their own skills and knowledge from their various areas of study, and to teach the kids that art and creativity come in many forms, be it dance, poetry, music, a skit, visual art, or photography. The mentors all got a bit teary when one of their mentees, Paul, happily said afterwards, “I never knew before this that I was an artist!” and lastly, 3) DREAMers were able to encourage the children’s parents and other members of the Willowbrook community to come and support their kids, as well as build connections between members of our college and the Bennington community.

The Viking Cabaret was made possible by donations from wonderfully generous local businesses, a grant awarded from the DREAM Alumni Org, and countless hours of hard work from mentors and mentees. Congratulations to the Bennington DREAM Program for such a great night!

Yes, that's right, DREAM is now tweeting! DREAM is going to try to send out updates every 24 hours on upcoming events, DREAM news, and any important announcements for the DREAM community. Please, if you have a twitter, (or if you don't, make one!) follow us so we can follow you! And start tweeting!

http://twitter.com/DREAMprogram

The DREAM Program now has a veggie fleet! The DREAM Bus has already transported children and mentors on hundreds of vegetable oil gallons, all sourced from local restaurants, including Dino's in Burlington.

This year, we received funding from the Jane B. Cook 1983 Charitable Trust to purchase a converted 2003 Volkswagen Jetta station wagon, adding to our vegetable oil fleet. This new ride will be used by staff to better support our programs. In just two months, we’ve already traveled over 3500 miles on 100 gallons of oil. At this rate, we’ll be saving about $5000 a year in transportation costs and using a local, carbon neutral fuel that decreases our impact on the environment! We’re proud of this work and excited to share it with you. Let us know if you have any questions!

Also, we are looking for sponsors to keep the fleet in in working order and available. If you know of a business or individual who would like to sponsor this initiative, let us know!

The State of DREAM from DREAM Program on Vimeo.

DREAM's Executive Director, Mike Loner, delivers a speech about where DREAM has been and where it is going in the future. Following his speech is a short news report from Vermont's local news program, Vermont Confidential! Don't miss it!

The DREAM Middlebury program was featured in the local Middlebury paper on January 1st, 2009. Take a look!