Your Rich DVRS Heritage from REACH Fun Friday Brief #1

Good Morning!   Wanted to share some information that now been preserved digitally thanks to some recent assistance we have received with scanning as part of the youth work experience program Project Search.   We are very appreciative of their assistance! 

You are part of a program that has been in existence in North Carolina since the early 1920’s.   There have been many, many changes to the program over this span.   We continue to evolve as the needs of our clientele, community, and employers’ needs evolve.   Just on the way to work this morning, I saw a bumper sticker that I thought was a good summary for many changes we as a world are experiencing.  It read “Change in Inevitable--Struggle is Optional.”    We are the DVRS family and we will work together with our other partners to use these recent opportunities, e.g., WIOA,  to strengthen our position and effectiveness.    As we move forward, constructive feedback is an important component, so keep your constructive feedback from your unique perspective preferably coming through your managers.    
The main point of sharing this information is that we are all part of a wonderful profession that has a rich heritage and many of you are interested in this.  There are many who are approaching retirement age among our ranks who may remember some of the fine individuals who were working as part of our DVRS family within the past 3-4 decades and I hope to intentionally include snippets of them, anticipating that they would recognize them at the beginning of their careers.   REACH was an internal communication pamphlet that was published regularly from 1953  through the early 1970’s.    I have tremendous respect for what they accomplished with the non-digital tools available to them at the time. 
The plan is to have these wonderful publications, now scanned, available for your review on the intranet or shared drive.   Additionally, my intentions are to post most Fridays a small sampling of highlights from a REACH issue so we can take a moment to reflect on who we were as a service family, who we are today, and who we may wish to become.    I hope you enjoy this information as much as I do.    
From 1953 issue #1—an introductory note from Charles H. Warren, Director

Performance of the era:

When we talk about how complex things have become—well, here is the first  piece of evidence—look at the simplicity of the application! 

AND since we have the 2016 NCRA – NCATP GREAT conference in a few weeks—some fun photos from that event from 1972 issue: