Thirty students from the Upward Bound program at Texas Wesleyan University volunteered at the Community Food Bank on Monday, July 8. Natalie Thomas, who has served at TWU for 6 years after graduating from there in 2004, is the coordinator of the program. She describes the program as helping first-generation, low-income students prepare for and eventually enroll in college. Students in the program come from the following 4 FWISD high schools: Polytechnic, North Side, Diamond Hill Jarvis, and Dunbar. “Part of what we like to do is to expose our students to community service. They are first-generation, low-income students, so they know what it’s like to be on the receiving end, but a lot of our students are high-achieving, so they are in the National Honor Society, and they want to give back to their community, not just because it looks good on a college resume but because it makes them feel good as well.”
The program provides several opportunities for their students to engage in community service, and the Community Food Bank is grateful to be a site for their service. “Today we have students who are creating snack boxes for students of after school care. We have some students on the assembly line who are assembling the boxes that will go out to the people [in the food pantry line]. The young men in my group take the boxes out to the people. And then we have some students who are getting diapers ready for the Impact program.”
Ms. Thomas also shared about TWU: “If you know you want to go to a 4-year university, but you are not quite ready for the 300 people in your classroom, Texas Wesleyan University is a great opportunity. Everything is going to be smaller. Our campus is maybe 2 blocks big, and it’s a great education.”
Thanks to each of you from Texas Wesleyan University for playing an important role in helping us feed families and feed home here in our North Texas community!
