Community Connection
Reach for Your Dreams Participants
Organizations
Camp Fire USA reaches more than 20,000 mostly inner-city boys and girls in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area through innovative after-school and prevention education programs, providing the kids with a safe environment and positive role models who foster their academic, social and emotional development. Learn more at campfireomaha.org.
The Hope Center for Kids is a faith-based, after-school and summer program that serves urban youth with a selection of activities that promote educational excellence, team sportsmanship, social skills training, service to others and youth employability. Learn more at hopecenterforkids.org.
Girls Inc. serves more than 1,000 girls annually in two centers and thousands more through outreach programs for children and teens that target core areas such as self-reliance, culture, career and life planning, sports leadership and community action. Learn more at girlsincomaha.org.
Artists
Kristin Pluhacek’s drawings, paintings and fabric works have been displayed extensively throughout the Midwest and are held in numerous public and private collections. A graduate of Creighton University, she now teaches drawing at Metropolitan Community College and the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha.
Shirley Neary creates art quilts using various materials such as paint, dye, cotton, silk and thread to express ideas that often come from everyday experiences, readings or memories. A graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, she was honored with the Nebraska Art Council’s Individual Fellowship in 2004.
Marcia Joffe-Bouska’s workshops encourage experimentation, problem solving, discovery, communication and self-expression as she shares her deep love of art and the joy in creation. A graduate of Clarke College and Northern Illinois University, she works from her studio in Council Bluffs, Iowa.