On April 13, Engage Dallas, along with the Office of Social Change and Intercultural Engagement (SCIE) co-hosted the inaugural One Night for Dallas community partner reception. This reception honored the collective work of SMU service organizations, faculty and staff members, and community partners who work together throughout the year to make a positive impact and create sustainable change in the Dallas community. In attendance were students affiliated with Engage Dallas, The Big Event, and Mustang Heroes, SMU faculty and staff members, and community organizations.
Danielle Palomo welcoming guests to One Night for Dallas.
Attendees enjoyed dinner and dialogue and heard remarks from our very own Jennifer “JJ” Jones, Executive Director for Student Development and Director of SCIE, as well as Dr. K.C. Mmeje, Vice President for Student Affairs.
We also honored students, staff, faculty, and community partners who have done outstanding work this year. Award categories and winners below:
Do Good for Dallas award winner, Jonathan Liu.
Do Good for Dallas – Vikas Bobba, Lilly Chapman, and Jonathan Liu
This award is presented to three first- or second-year students who engaged in service for the 2021-2022 school year. These students are rising stars within their residential community or service organization and demonstrated leadership qualities that has benefited both SMU and Dallas.
Outstanding Student Director award winner, Kirk Thomas.
Outstanding Student Director – Kirk Thomas
This award is provided to an Engage Dallas Student Director who has gone above and beyond through planning service projects and educating their commons on the importance of their social problem and the impact of serving.
Outstanding Student Leader award winner, Connor Healy.
Outstanding Student Leader – Connor Healy This award recognizes one student leader from Mustang Heroes, The Big Event, or Alternative Breaks who has dedicated their time to serving their community and serves as a leader to their peers and organization members.
Outstanding Faculty/Staff award winner and Kathy Crow Commons Faculty-in-Residence, Daniele Forlino.
Outstanding Faculty/Staff – Daniele Forlino
This award highlights one faculty or staff member who supports students in planning or leading service projects throughout the year. Additionally, this recipient serves as an advocate and connector between SMU service organizations and the greater SMU student population.
Outstanding Community Partner – Legacy Senior Communities and Rebuilding Together North Texas This award honors two community partners who have actively participated in SMU’s service programs during the 2021-2022 school year and work closely to create engaging service opportunities for students.
Congratulations to all of our winners! To our students, staff, faculty, and community partners…thank you for all that you do!
One Night for Dallas attendees congratulating all of the winners.
This past spring, Engage Dallas celebrated three of their own student leaders graduating!
Eduardo Yanez Pastene earned a B.A. in Markets and Culture with a minor in Advertising. He is currently pursuing a career in product development.
Kirk Thomas graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science with a security specialization. After graduation, he’ll be working in corporate technology at Allstate.
Gigi Kinanicompleted a B.A. in Economics and will be doing marketing and business development for a software company in Dallas.
Thank you again, Eduardo, Kirk, and Gigi for all you’ve done for Engage Dallas. We can’t wait to watch you continue to think big and do good beyond your years on the Hilltop.
Engage Dallas is excited to share our first end-of-the-year report.
This year’s report contains words from our initiative manager, Commons partnerships, student experience, Engage Dallas by the numbers, #1Day4Dallas, One Night for Dallas recap, social outreach, team members, and more!
SMU students provided over 3,815 hours of service this academic year, and we are just getting started. Take a gander at the report for yourself.
Thanks again for being here and for your continued support of this one-of-a-kind initiative. We couldn’t do it without you.
The spring semester of 2022 took off with a bang and is ending with a sprint. Sliding into graduation season and the end of classes, it’s important to look back and remember all the things we’ve accomplished so far. Engage Dallas has connected to the community in dozens of ways this year, so here’s a run-down for what we’ve been up to in Dallas since the start of the semester.
In January, we announced 16 new community partners (that you can read about here). Starting off the year strong, our new and former partners collaborated with all eleven of SMU’s Commons to foster engagement between SMU students and South and West Dallas Communities.
Engage Dallas student volunteers during park clean-up
Our first service day was with the Trinity River Audubon Center. Members of Kathy Crow Commons started the day learning about the environmental history of Dallas, particularly the prominence of illegal dump sites in minority communities. Afterwards students got to help propagate native Texas plants on the Trinity River grounds. Students walked away having learned about both the people and plants in the native Dallas community.
Engage Dallas students volunteer with Rebuilding Together NTX
In late February, Groundwork Dallas provided all the tools and equipment for students to participate in a park clean up! Engage Dallas and Kathy Crow partnered with the nonprofit to clean up a South Dallas park. Students got to serve community needs by participating in different activities around the park based on their differing skill levels to help make the park a better place for South Dallas residents.
Engage Dallas students volunteer gardening
To kick off March, Ware Commons partnered with Rebuilding Together NTX through Engage Dallas to bring services to an elementary school in South Texas. Rebuilding Together NTX has been a longtime community partner with Engage Dallas, with a mission to help “repair homes, revitalize communities, and rebuild lives,” by providing health and safety repairs. For this service day, students got to assist in the building of a garden for Richard Lagow Elementary School.
On March 6th, Cockrell-McIntosh visited the STEM Center of Excellence at Camp Whispering Cedars and worked with the Girls Scouts of North Texas. SMU students volunteered helping 5th and 6th graders with science demonstrations and activities around the camp.
Engage Dallas students volunteer gardening
“I helped the girls with chemistry and I really loved to see their reaction to the experiments… it just warmed my heart,” said Cockrell-McIntosh Student Director, MacKenzie Thierry.
Another way to get involved on campus is through our general engagement events. In March, Kathy Crow hosted a Flowerpot Paint Night with Engage Dallas. These events are designed to bring students together in a way that encourages involvement and awareness of the prevalence of social problems and their intersectionality, much like our service days.
“Attendees painted flower pots and planted seeds for flowers! We talked about the importance of home gardens – did you know that having a home garden or a lawn full of indigenous plants helps combat the increase of temperatures from climate change? The concrete of modern cities and towns retains heat and the presence of home gardens can help combat that,” reflected Student Director Lilly Chapman.
On the last day of March, SMU’s Boaz and Kathy Crow Commons got to help Restorative Farms in their mission to “foster a vibrant and viable community-based urban farm system in South Dallas.” For this service event, titled “Smoothie Day” students got to participate directly in the activities that go into upkeeping sustainable community farms, and drink smoothies too!
“Everyone was able to help out at Restorative Farms with the jobs that needed to be accomplished. There were 4 distinct jobs that needed to be done: transplanting (moving younger plants to larger pots), making mini-hydroponics from plastic bottles for an upcoming middle group later in the afternoon, alternate planting which they alternate planting lettuce and radishes in their signature grow boxes and putting labels on bags for their CSA (community supplied agriculture) boxes to sell to their customers,” said Student Director Lilly Chapman.
Service events are about service, but they are also about connection. SMU students have the opportunity to connect with people and resources across Dallas, as well as with community leaders here at SMU. “Everyone had enjoyed the service event and would like to do more in the future. We were able to connect with the KCC’s FIRs, meet Dr. Lynch, and learn more about Restorative Farms,” said Chapman. Of course, no smoothie day is complete without a good smoothie! These tasty treats were offered to students as well as members of the community.
“Everyone enjoyed Lilly’s smoothies which were amazing. She used a lot of great ingredients including fresh fruits (bananas, strawberries, and blueberries)… I think everyone also had a good time as well learning about Restorative Farms,” said Boaz Student Director, Jonathan Liu.
Engage Dallas students volunteer with Empowering the Masses
McElvaney Commons also put on a General Engagement event on the final day of March. The Residential Community Director (RCD) for McElvaney, Maya Reeves, gave “a wonderful presentation on mental health and healthy alternatives to deal with stress”, remarked McElvaney Student Director, Sabeen Baledina. Students “drank boba, ate donuts, made sugar scrubs, and laughed all throughout the evening. It was truly a wonderful event and I can’t wait to plan more just like it!”, reflected Baledina.
The service hour thermostat in Ware Commons
In April, students from SMU’s Ware Commons worked with Empowering the Masses to provide resources for over 162 families. By packaging resources for transport, Ware students got to work towards their 400-hour community service goal.
“The picture of the ‘thermostat’ is a poster put up in Ware. Every service event this academic year in Ware is going to count toward our 400-hour goal. Everyone that participates in any of the service events will be invited to get treats as prizes when one of the goals is met (60% is an Ice Cream Party and 100% is a Pizza Party).” said Kirk Thomas. Ware was able to reach their 60% goal of a collective 240 hours of service.
Reflecting on the 2021-2022 year, Student Director Jonathan Liu said, “The most impactful experience with Engage Dallas was #1Day4Dallas back in the Fall semester. I was working with other Boazies that were also interested in service and at the time did not really know any of them, but I was able to build community with them as a Boazie and as a volunteer. I got to meet several Boazies that… include Sameet (my current commons council president) and good acquaintances of mine to this day.” In spring 2022, Jonathan took his involvement to the next level and became the student director for Boaz!
Engage Dallas’ community service events have continued to offer students the opportunity to serve the South and West Dallas communities. Service has a lasting impact…not just a day, but a lifetime. If you’re looking for opportunities to get involved, event lists and registration can be found on the Engage Dallas website. Be on the lookout for events in the fall. We hope to serve with you soon!
As a new initiative, Engage Dallas is consistently seeking feedback and insights on ways to innovate our work, improve our processes, and reaffirm mutual benefit between SMU and the South and West Dallas communities.
Here’s what we discovered since our modest beginning in October 2020: While our community partners enjoy having Engage Dallas groups come on-site and serve alongside them, sometimes they need only one or two students — not an entire group.
Engage Dallas also knows SMU students have varied schedules and may not always be available to serve with their Residential Commons during scheduled group service.
So, what’s the solution? A new form of individual service called solo service. Solo service launched to students on February 14, 2022.
While Engage Dallas still offers monthly, group service through the Residential Commons, solo service is a type of Engage Dallas Individual Service. Solo service provides semi-structured opportunities for students to volunteer and provide direct service on an individual basis. Engage Dallas curates these individual service opportunities for students, based on their Residential Commons affiliation, to volunteer as their schedule and the community need align.
Solo Service is characterized by:
Individual, or sometimes a pair, of students participate in service
Students organize their own transportation to and from the service site
Students sign-up or schedule directly with the Community Partner representative
Here’s what we discovered since our modest beginning in October 2020: While our community partners enjoy having Engage Dallas groups come on-site and serve alongside them, sometimes they need only one or two students — not an entire group.
While Engage Dallas still offers monthly, group service through the Residential Commons, solo service is a type of