Good morning and welcome to Wilmington’s Residential Adolescent Achievement Place, more commonly known as WRAAP. My name is Joshua Bellamy and I am the program director for the Williston Middle School site. I am excited to get to know each of you and to have you start volunteering here at WRAAP.

First, I want to make sure all of you know what WRAAP is and how we operate. WRAAP is funded by two federal grants from the Technology Assistance for Needy Families and 21^st Century. For those of you that do not know what that is, TANF’s main focus is on social and life skills, while the 21^st Century grant focuses on academic performance. Since you have been chosen to work at the Williston site, which is the host for the 21^st Century program, it is important that you realize your main priority is to enhance learning in these children. While you will be able to play games and hang out with the children, it is necessary that you put academics first.

We want to increase not only the students’ end of grade scores, but also how they learn and enforce the habits of doing homework. It is also important that you realize these are at-risk youth we are working with. Many of these students come from broken homes or neighborhoods where they do not feel safe. We want WRAAP to be a place where they find happiness and encouragement.

Now that you know a little more about WRAAP and the children you will be working with, I will let you know what your orientation schedule will be like this week. This will be a week-long training session where you are expected to be here at 10:00 am until 2:00 pm this upcoming Monday through Friday. We expect you to be here every day and on time. However, we do realize that sometimes things come up in life. If you will need to miss a day, or will be late, please let us know as early as possible. Lunch will be provided daily and it should be a fun experience. On Monday and Tuesday, you will hear from several of our staff members and learn the various curriculums we offer. On Wednesday and Thursday, we will have First Aid and CPR training. Then, on Friday, you will get a chance to meet the students and be assigned a group to work with.

The dress code for orientation will be the same dress code you will continue to wear whenever you volunteer at WRAAP, which is casual. Jeans are acceptable, as long as there are no rips or tears in them. Clothing must be appropriate for working with children, meaning no low cut tops or anything short is permitted. Comfortable shoes, like sneakers or flats, are the most appropriate choice; however, flip flops are not allowed. You will each get a badge with your picture on it once you complete orientation, so until then, you will need to fill out a visitor’s pass each day and use that as your name tag.

While some of you may have worked with children before, and others have not, I am sure you will all get a lot of useful information out of this orientation session. I look forward to working with each one of you. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you.