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From sunrise to sunset, Brewster has it all.
Hi, I'm Kyle Hinkel.
I'm the Executive Director of the Brewster Chamber of Commerce,
and this is the best of Brewster,
a monthly show featuring the business people of Brewster and Cape Cod.
This month, our spotlight business is Hart Pottery,
and I'll introduce you to Potter Diane Hart.
She is a wonderful and fascinating woman.
But first, joining me here in the studio at Channel 99 in Northeast Ham
are Jessica Larson and Mike Gradone,
who are from the Nosset Youth Alliance,
and we're going to talk a little bit about the Nosset Youth Alliance.
So welcome to the show.
Thanks for having us.
Hey, you're very welcome.
So the Nosset Youth Alliance was the beneficiary this year
of fundraising proceeds from the 2016 Brewster for the Holidays Festival,
which the Chamber hosts,
and they received a donation of $2,000,
and we were thrilled to be able to do that for you.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
So let's talk about Nosset Youth Alliance.
I have a feeling there are a lot of people that don't really know much about it.
When was the Youth Alliance established?
Early 90s.
Early 90s, about 20 years ago, I think?
Yeah.
As far as I know, it was a group of parents who basically got together
and really kicked things off.
They probably noticed that they were missing a service in town,
which is obviously having after-school care for the kids.
I can remember when I was a child,
and I went to Brewster Elementary before it was actually Stony Brook,
and we were always going over our friend's house
or going to a grandparents' house.
I don't think they had something like this back then.
So parents started the group, and it's kind of evolved in the past 20 years,
and here we are.
So what exactly does the Youth Alliance do?
I mean, you're providing after-school programs and summer programs.
Correct.
So what age groups do you serve and how does it work?
We're primarily kindergarten to fifth grade.
We do have a couple of sixth graders that come in.
The program serves as an alternative to kids going home alone,
either after school or during the summer while their parents work.
So it's a very good service for Brewster families
because access to affordable, enriching childcare
is a cornerstone to a thriving community.
That's true.
That's very true. That's really good.
And I will say the Brewster schools have been very supportive.
They give us in-kind use of the building,
so we are able to operate both out of Stony Brook and Eddie School,
which is really great because that breaks the kids up by age a little bit.
Because we do have a large group,
comparatively to the other towns on the Lower Cape.
So it affords us the ability to break that group up,
like Jess said, into Stony Brook kids who are K through 2
and Eddie who are 3 through 5.
We have a capacity at each facility,
and we really need that because we have so many kids at each.
And of course, the two age groups really do work better by themselves,
so to speak, and lumping them all together, you'd have complete chaos
if you tried to do that.
I think most people who have raised children,
and remember the terrible twos, will definitely agree with that.
So exactly how many families and how many children
are being served by the program?
We have about 125 kids, roughly,
and probably about 75 families.
Because, you know, just kind of think that a lot of those kids
have brothers or sisters that are in the program too.
And we get a small influx during the summer of, you know,
folks who aren't necessarily in Brewster,
because our summer program encompasses anyone,
not just Brewster children.
The school program is just Brewster kids.
I was just going to ask about that.
So they have to be in the school in order to be part of the program
during the school year.
Correct.
So someone who has grandchildren visiting them for the summer,
the grandchildren could participate in the summer programs?
Absolutely.
That's cool.
I don't think a lot of people realize that.
And we know, like I said, the small influx that we do get,
we have lots of summer people who come down
for a couple of weeks at a time,
or like you said, an instance, like a grandparent in town,
and we welcome those people.
Absolutely.
That is very cool. I like that.
So NYA, that's what everybody sort of goes to when they talk about it,
is a nonprofit organization?
It is.
501c3?
It's member run, and we did discuss that this was started by parents,
and that's a really important piece because parents keep it going.
Parents operate it.
We need a board to pay Mike, who is an employee.
So right now I think we have 11 board members, 11 parents.
We have a few, they're not all parents, excuse me.
We have a couple of community members as well who serve on our board,
which is great.
And we're always looking for new, interested people.
So if anybody wants to get involved, we're a very welcoming bunch.
We're great if you're new to town.
That's a good idea.
So 11 board members, Mike, are you the only staff person,
or are there some other people who?
No, I'm the director.
And then we have three wonderful ladies in the office
who kind of help me run the day-to-day operations,
the bookkeeping, the attendance, the enrichment programs that we run,
all that kind of stuff.
They help me with that, or I should say I help them.
They keep me afloat.
And then each site at Eddie and Stony Brook,
they have a site coordinator that kind of runs the program there.
And then each program has, Stony Brook has about eight staff members
who are group leaders and teachers, and then Eddie has four.
We have about 15 or so employees total.
So the group leaders, are they paid, or are they,
they're paid by NASA Youth Alliance?
Correct.
They're all licensed through ECEC, over childhood education.
So they all come to us with experience.
Yeah.
And the state sort of tells us what that amount of experience is,
as well as what our numbers are, our ratio of teachers to students.
So that's different than, say, a camp program.
Right.
So where does your funding come from?
You mentioned members.
So the parents or the families that have children in the programs,
are they members of NYA?
Correct.
Yes.
And so there is a tuition, and that is a primary source of funding.
We do have a number of grants that come to us from yourself.
The Brewster Baptist Church has been very generous with us.
The Federated Church has been very generous with us.
We also get funding from certain organizations that give the children vouchers,
and that's based on the parents' income, as well.
Right.
So we do accept vouchers.
Yeah, I'm familiar with that, only because of my own background
with non-profit organizations all over this part of the Cape.
So the voucher program, talk a little bit about that
and how that works for a family with kids.
If we know that we have a family that's in need,
they certainly, we have an open-door policy.
They come to us, and they can either talk to myself,
Susan, anyone in the office, about getting them in touch with folks
who can help them, because we do understand that there are families out there
who are in need and can't necessarily pay that tuition.
And so we send them to other organizations that are learning about it.
Like the Lower Cape Outreach Council, Homeland Prevention Council, Children's Place.
Yeah, and get them hooked up so they can get a voucher,
and then they can't participate in the program.
And our board also, we do have emergency tuition available to the board,
which is something I myself have utilized when I needed it.
So it is available.
We really try to find a way.
We're not in the practice of turning kids away by any stretch.
So emergency tuition or, in essence, a scholarship.
In essence, a scholarship, yeah.
Can I ask what your total budget is?
This is amazing that you've been so quiet and are seeming to do so well.
Total budget, that's a good question.
I'm trying to think offhand of what that might be.
I missed the budget meeting on Tuesday.
We just discussed summer tuition.
I don't have an answer for that offhand.
That's okay.
I know that we certainly keep money in the bank in case of emergency funds
need to be allocated to families.
But yeah, I don't know the question offhand.
Right now we're in a good place.
That has been shifted.
When I first joined the board, there was a little bit more confusion about the budget.
When you have parent-run organizations,
sometimes it takes a while to pull it together.
But we have had a great volunteer, Pat, who's come to us from Cape Cod Five,
and she acted as our treasurer and really helped us pull it together.
So right now we're in a pretty good place.
It can be a little difficult to juggle.
We were talking about vouchers,
and vouchers don't actually replace the full cost of our tuition.
So that creates sort of a budgetary gap that we have to find ways to deal with.
The town of Brewster last year did give us a grant from the Health and Human Services Committee,
and that was the first time we got that.
That was very helpful as well.
And we reapplied again this year for that.
I'll just say keep asking for that.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
I think you guys deserve it.
It's a great way for the town to help the kids.
Yeah, it really is.
Because the last thing we ever want to do is limit the amount of vouchers we can take.
We don't ever want to turn anybody away.
Right.
That's hard.
So let's talk about your programs,
because I think that's the crux of the whole thing.
The back end stuff that we've just talked about is important and valuable,
but the programs are what make the kids happy.
So the summer programs in particular,
what kind of activities do you plan for the children?
Well, we have a variety of activities.
Typically we go to the pond almost every day.
It's a long pond.
We're going to switch that up a little bit this year.
We're going to reduce the number of times we actually go to the pond
and create more activities at the site.
We also have field trips.
We go on at least one field trip a week,
a big field trip with the whole group,
whether it's a Red Sox game,
Whale Watch,
Red Sox waterways,
waterways, couple of times.
Those are big field trips.
Yeah, we take, you know, 50 plus kids usually to those.
And then we have smaller enrichment programs that we do throughout the week too,
whether it's just a little fishing trip down to Nickerson State Park
or a pottery class or, you know,
those are all things that we do during summer, which is awesome.
My big thing this year is we have a garden over at the Eddy School,
which I didn't know too much about when I took the position last June,
but now that I know it's there,
I'm very excited and I want to get the kids involved and start using that.
That's really cool.
But yeah, we have a variety of different things we do.
Garden piece, that's going to be really interesting.
Now, do you have connections with other gardeners who can help with this?
Do you need volunteers?
Absolutely, we'd love that.
Anyone with a green thumb would, we'd welcome.
I've been sorting through some emails actually,
the old president of the board, Lisa Still,
has sent me some emails with specific gardening for kids
that I think that they were using, you know,
a few years back that I'm going to try and incorporate that.
It's a whole farm to table movement.
It's so big and we have so many farms in Brewster overall.
It would be really cool to connect with them and have them help out with stuff like that.
Lucas Dinwiddie from Helsinki Farms comes to my mind.
I went to high school with Lucas.
Okay, you need to tap him.
See if he'll come and help.
It would be so cool for the kids to understand where their food comes from.
I just think that's the best training in the whole wide world.
I recall the first year we grew a number of flowers that were edible
and then we had the kids make salads.
So we sort of lost it in the transition.
Mike joined us last year, right at the end of the school year.
So it'll be exciting to get that going again this year.
Oh, that's very, very cool.
You might even be able to do a little farm stand in the fall.
Another way to raise some money.
Put those kids to work.
Well, you know, when they understand where things come from,
it doesn't matter whether it's food or whether it's money to help them have a good time.
When they start to understand that they start to appreciate it more, I think.
Absolutely.
Yeah, so that's really cool.
Now, the after-school part of it, those are enrichment programs as well.
Are they more structured than the summer stuff?
The school program is a little bit more structured than the summer program
simply because, I mean, they're coming from school,
which is a very structured environment.
Obviously, we loosen up the reins a little bit because it is an after-school program,
but they still have, you know, certain times where they're supposed to be doing certain things.
You know, they come to us at homework.
Well, you know, that's kind of, in a way, that's probably good
because it's better than sending them home with homework to do.
And then they can spend time with their family after they suffer.
For the families that pick up their kids at six o'clock,
the last thing you want is to have a seven-year-old who's been at school for 10 hours
who has an hour and a half of homework.
So we make sure they get their recreation time, they get their homework time,
they get their snack time, and a lot of free play time.
And I'm very proud of Mike has done a lot in connecting with the staff at the schools
to make sure that we're really meeting the needs of the students
as they come out of their classrooms.
That's something we've really improved this year.
That's cool. So you've really extended the school.
Yeah, we'd like to think of ourselves as an extension of school.
What's your background like?
I come from a Parks and Rec background, actually.
I've worked with kids for a long time, but really youth development
is what's the most important thing to me.
I love working with kids.
I love providing them with an opportunity to make themselves better.
And, you know, at NYA, that's our number one goal to give them a safe
and nurturing place to come after school and enjoy themselves.
And in the meantime, if we can teach them about, you know, manners
and being a good person and treating others, yeah, following the rules,
treating others as you want to be treated, all those types of things,
those are the things that we focus on.
Well, I watched you in action at the tree lighting during Brewster for the holidays.
And you are amazing. They are like little lemmings.
You say, come here, they come here.
Sometimes.
I was really impressed with that.
And the children were all very, very well behaved.
And they, you know, and you let them play and run around, too,
which I think is important.
You know, you got to let the kids be kids, too.
That's my motto.
But they've got to be able to follow the rules when the rules need to be followed.
And they've done that, which is really cool.
Well, if somebody wanted to get involved with NASA Youth Alliance,
what can they do? How can they get a hold of you guys?
They can certainly go to the website.
That is www.nasaeathalliance.org.
It's got, you know, everything that we do from our summer program,
our school program, our enrichment programs.
It's got all our contact information, a list of the board of directors.
Again, if someone was interested and wanted to join the board,
we'd love to have them.
So all that information is up on the website.
Or they could certainly stop in.
I have an open door and, you know, you can call me, email me.
And your office is?
My office is at Stony Brook Elementary School, yeah.
Yeah, so you had a knock on the door and asked to get let in.
Yeah, just say, I want to see Mike from NYA.
There you go.
We'll show you the way.
Well, this has really been interesting.
And I hope maybe we'll garner some volunteers for your group.
That would be great.
We love new ideas.
So anybody who wants to bring their craft to the kids,
we're here to find a path to do that.
I love it. That's very cool.
Good.
Well, thank you very much.
And so now follow me to Brewster and I'll introduce you to Potter Diane Hart.
Really good.
So this charming little cottage is the home of Hart Pottery.
And I'm going to go in and talk to Diane.
She's getting ready to throw some pots.
So follow me.
I go through four tons of clay a year.
Wow.
I am a production at Potter.
Yeah.
Because I learned all those skills.
Right.
But you're selling it too.
Yes.
It's worthwhile.
And you mentioned that your wheel is a little bit different than what a traditional pottery wheel would be.
Yeah.
A lot of potters, traditionally, they'd be sitting in a hole with their legs in a hole,
like in Japan.
So they wouldn't be hunched over like this.
They'd be sitting like I am.
So what I tried to do is duplicate that the way it used to be.
Right.
Because a potter went to Japan and came up with this wheel design.
And everybody's backs after 20 years are out.
Are out.
Yeah.
So I started standing up.
And then this potter from Vermont said to me,
no, just tilt your, instead of standing, just tilt your seat.
And then I have a brick on this side and my pedal's here.
So I'm just like, I'm just using my body like this.
So your stool is actually like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a good idea.
Well, I was so happy with it that I went up to visit his student.
He's Robert Compton.
He's in Vermont.
And I went up and bought a whole bunch of pottery from him because he saved me.
Just by giving me that.
That too.
That info.
That's it.
That's really cool.
So how hard is it to learn how to do a potter?
It takes a lot of practice.
I taught pottery in my studio for the college and for kids and everything.
It takes a good, maybe 16 weeks before you can actually center the clay and make it do
what you want it to do.
But it's really practice.
And I was just, I don't know why, but I just, I fell in love with it and I was just into
it.
I wasn't a good potter at first, but I was just driven to the material because it's not
precious.
Gotcha.
I had thought that I wanted to be a jeweler.
Yeah.
Make a little vase here.
I had thought that I wanted to be a jeweler, but it was 70s and it's silver skyrocketed.
So that's why I took a pottery class instead.
Gold skyrocketed either way.
Yeah.
So if you want to make a little vase, you just squeeze it a little.
Squeeze in the neck.
It really looks really neat.
I mean, the whole, the texture and everything of the clay is just so, this is porcelain.
So it's like, it's like working with cream cheese.
There's no grit to it.
That's a good description.
Yeah.
A lot of potters don't work with porcelain because it's harder to work it.
I could make much more money working in stoneware, but I just love the glaze as I can get.
Okay.
On really high fire.
I go higher than stoneware.
So tell me, what do you like most about having your own business?
Diane.
I can make anything I want to make.
When I started, I'll tell you what you have to make.
When I started my own business, I felt like I had to reproduce the factory and have a
wholesale line.
So I did that.
And I said, what am I doing?
I don't have to do that.
I don't have to.
But I was wholesaling to a lot of places because I didn't have a good gallery space.
So I'd sell, you know, 10 teapots to someplace and chat them and go around like that.
Right.
And now I don't have to because this location is so nice.
Yeah.
You've got a great spot.
And that's why I bought it.
That makes sense.
So what do you like least about owning your own business?
Right before Christmas, I had the flu and I had to finish pot.
Oh, I had to fire my kiln and ship.
So I kept getting up, doing what I couldn't go and back to bed.
That's what I like least.
Yeah.
You can't call in sick.
Yeah.
You can't call in sick.
That's a really good point.
And it's true.
All those business owners, you know, that's the truth.
You're it.
Yeah.
And right before Christmas, I can't let all these people down at an ordered thing.
Absolutely.
And so what do you like to do when you're time off?
I know you go to the gym a lot.
I do.
I like to walk.
I love to do watercolor, though I'm not a good watercolorist.
But I take classes and oh, nice.
Yeah.
I love doing that.
I like to look right now on babysitting for my little granddaughter.
So, um, but I like to garden.
I love to garden.
Yeah.
Well, you and I look Mark have beautiful gardens.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, well, this has been really, really fascinating.
Thank you.
I think people are going to enjoy watching this and learning a little bit about being a potter.
It's, um, it's a great life.
I've been a potter for 40 years now.
Um, and I would really, really miss it if I had to kill it up.
Yeah.
Aren't we lucky that we've got the energy to keep it going.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, um, thanks very much, Diane.
Thank you.
This has been really cool.
Thank you.
Thank you all for watching and tune in again next month for more of the best of Brewster.
