On October 23rd, the Ware Commons Volleyball team played in Gamma Phi’s Moonball sand volleyball tournament at the Dedman Rec Center’s sand volleyball courts. Moonball is SMU’s Gamma Phi Beta‘s signature philanthropy event where their chapter hosts either a kickball, volleyball, or basketball tournament each academic year to raise funds for their philanthropic partner, Girls on the Run.
After winning multiple games undefeated, Ware Commons took 1st place in the tournament, winning a $1,000 donation to a nonprofit of the team’s choice.
Ware Commons choose to donate the $1,000 prize to Rebuilding Together NTX, one of Ware’s nonprofit partners through Engage Dallas. Rebuilding Together is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization working to preserve affordable home ownership and revitalize communities with free home and facility repairs. In Dallas/Ft. Worth, Rebuilding Together has served since 2001 to make critical safety and accessibility improvements to more than 500 homes so their clients may live in safe and accessible homes.
Since the beginning of the partnership between Ware Commons and Rebuilding Together NTX in Fall 2020, Ware residents have already performed over 750 hours of service for Rebuilding Together. Most recently, residents replaced and repaired flooring for a veteran, widow neighbor in South Dallas.
The Engage Dallas education and training team published 21 hours of new content for students on October 3. These supplemental online trainings aid SMU students in their understanding of the community-identified needs and are intended to increase their effectiveness when completing their community service in South and West Dallas.
Reed remarked, “Engage Dallas offers required and supplemental training courses to allow participants to better understand the Engage Dallas initiative and the diverse communities we serve. As we develop world changers, we think that it is important to provide direct and indirect learning opportunities for students, opportunities for students to identify the intersections between social problems, and intentional reflections to help students identify their role in creating sustainable solutions.”
One of the Engage Dallas initiative goals is to build capacity for social change in our local community. The education and training team intentionally curated and embedded diversity, equity, and inclusion resources from national leaders like the Smithsonian National Museum, state-level data, and materials publicly available from our Engage Dallas community partners.
Overall, these trainings build student capacity during their service through Engage Dallas. For instance, each Residential Commons has a social problem and now have a training to provide important foundational knowledge. These trainings, available to students in the Engage Dallas Canvas Course, help students understand the national impact of the social problem and utilize critical thinking skills to analyze how individuals, groups, non-profit organizations, and/or government entities can come together combat the social problem. These 11-Commons-specific trainings include:
Armstrong Commons- Homelessness
Boaz Commons- Food Insecurity
Cockrell McIntosh Commons- College Access & Preparation
Crum- Arts as Social Impact
Kathy Crow Commons- Environmental Injustice
LoydCommons- STEM Education
MHPS Commons-Immigration & Refugee Support
McElvaney Commons- Community Wellbeing
Morrison McGinnis Commons- Child Poverty
Virginia Snider Commons- Childhood Literacy
Ware- Community Rebuilding
In addition to the above social problem trainings, the education and training committee published trainings entitled:
Systems of Oppression
Community Building and Community Impact
Active Listening and Active Citizenship
Privilege and Social Identities
Social Justice
Race and Engage Dallas
Introduction to Community Engagement
Circle of Self
Students can always access these online supplemental trainings, but SMU students will also be able to attend in-person opportunities throughout the academic year to dialogue about topics like these. In-person training and education sessions are posted regularly on the Engage Dallas website.
On September 12, students from Ware Commons participated in an Engage Dallas service event with their nonprofit partner, Rebuilding Together North Texas.
They served our neighbor, Ms. Stroupes, a 91-year-old veteran widow, in South Dallas to remove carpet and replace it with vinyl plank flooring. Over 60 hours were dedicated to providing Ms. Stroupes with a healthy and more comfortable living room that will allow her to breath clean air and provide her greater mobility.
Pre-COVID-19 service photo of SMU students staffing community event
Engage Dallas is excited to announce our community partners as we work to address community needs via the SMU Residential Commons (RC) and their 2,600+ residents. After an extensive research process by faculty, staff, and students to identify expressed community needs in South and West Dallas, each Residential Commons student leadership team adopted a long-term cause they were committed to addressing via Engage Dallas.
In Fall 2020, the Engage Dallas Offsite and Risk Management Committee began to identify community organizations already well-positioned, who are addressing the RC-chosen community needs. Throughout this intentional pairing process involving conversations with non-profit leaders, the committee focused on identifying community organizations whose missions aligns with the RC-chosen community need with which SMU could assist, and who — in the era of COVID-19 — offered virtual opportunities for our students.
Matt Nadler, Residential Community Director and Offsite and Risk Management co-chair, shared, “Getting to know the various Engage Dallas community organizations has been a highlight of my semester. I’m excited for our students to begin volunteering and getting involved with their various community needs.”
This semester, SMU students will put the online education and training they received into practice to begin volunteering remotely and may have direct-service opportunities as early as March. The Engage Dallas Student Director for each Residential Commons met with their partner organization liaison to organize virtual service opportunities for the spring semester.
Melanie Wright, Engage Dallas Student Director for Boaz Commons, exclaimed, “There is nothing I’m more passionate about than engaging with my community and helping those around me. My excitement about Engage Dallas has been growing ever since getting to know Boaz’s community organization, North Texas Food Bank, and so I’m excited to encourage everyone to participate in Engage Dallas this semester.”
Amber Martin, External Relations Manager for Reading Partners of North Texas, remarked, “I appreciate Engage Dallas and Eduardo [Engage Dallas student director for Virginia-Snider Commons] for the willingness to help within the community. The services Engage Dallas is providing North Texas will make a tremendous impact. Thank you for choosing Reading Partners to be one of Engage Dallas’ community partners.”
SMU is excited to announce the following organizations as the initial community partner cohort for Engage Dallas. Each Residential Commons is listed with its chosen community need and initial partner(s).
“We look forward to what we will be able to accomplish together,” concluded Nadler. For more information or to suggest an organization, visit the Engage Dallas website. Inquires by community organizations can be directed to Staphany C. López-Coronado, Assistant Director for the Office of Social Change and Intercultural Engagement (sclopez@smu.edu; 214-768-4582).
Engage Dallas’ Initiative Manager, Camille McCallum, is excited to announce the selection of the inaugural cohort of Student Directors.As a student-led initiative, Engage Dallas Student Directors serve as the primary contacts for SMU students in each Residential Commons (RC). Within their role, they plan and facilitate monthly service experiences, the Fall RC Service Day, host educational sessions, and more.
Meet the Engage Dallas Student Directors
Audrey Courreges
Engage Dallas Student Director for Armstrong Commons
Why I Serve:
Engage Dallas is a unique opportunity for SMU students to be real world changers in the Dallas community. While Dallas shines as one of the fastest growing cities in America, there are several unseen problems in the metroplex that need to be addressed. That’s where Engage Dallas comes in. We can connect SMU students to service projects and make real progress in our local communities.
The mission of Engage Dallas is something I am looking forward to because I can work with others to encourage the MHPS community to come together in using our time and resources to help those in need beyond our college campus. I am excited for this opportunity because I believe that we are called to be a light in everything we are involved in. Each time I serve is a tangible way that I can show Christ’s love.
Engage Dallas Student Director for Virginia-Snider Commons
Why I Serve:
Dallas is a city that seen me grow professionally. Also, it enriched my journey and making me feel just like at home. Without a doubt, engage in Dallas is a beautiful way of giving back.
I serve the local Dallas community to develop a more open minded and empathetic perspective on life. I believe that by helping others, you become a better version of your own self. I am extremely excited to encourage SMU students to participate in serving because I believe that it will allow them to meet new people, discover new things about themselves and others, and lastly, feel fulfilled and as if they have made an impact.
Dallas is my hometown and it has given me many beautiful memories. The least I can do is to give back to the community. Helping others is what keeps me going and I couldn’t be more excited to do it through SMU!
Engage Dallas Student Director for Cockrell-McIntosh Commons
Why I Serve:
I serve so that I can give back to my community and meet new people along the way. I enjoy broadening the service I have done as it makes me a more well-rounded person. I find it important to get other students excited about service opportunities by showing them how much fun it can be. Engage Dallas excites me because of how much potential it holds, especially with all of the creative minds that I know are working behind it.
Sustainability. I strive to help people be sustainable in jobs, social life, family. My goal is to see the big picture and find a way to not only help someone today, but to find a way for them to be better off tomorrow. Engage Dallas is our opportunity to shape the lives of our neighbors. Every person we help can go on to help others; that should be the ultimate goal: a sustainable cycle of lifting people up and giving them a path forward.
Engage Dallas Student Director for McElvaney Commons
Why I Serve:
I am a big believer in the power of community service to transform the servant’s perspective of community, to unite individuals through a shared objective, and to teach how to proactively address the needs of others. SMU shapes world-changers, and the Engage Dallas program is dedicated to carrying out that mission by building students into servant leaders and sending them out into the world to make a difference. While the impact this program will have on Dallas and beyond will undoubtedly be significant and powerful to witness, I am most excited to see how the introduction of a culture of servant leadership will enhance the SMU community and all aspects of the student experience
Having worked on the initiative that led to Engage Dallas, I am excited to be included as the initiative turns into reality. Community service has been a significant part of my life, and I am looking forward to being able to continue this work as well as assist others in it as well! I look forward to seeing how Engage Dallas will encourage students to give back to the city we call home and become aware of how they can help the community around them.
Engage Dallas Student Director for Morrison-McGinnis Commons
Why I Serve:
I serve to give back to the communities that have taken me in and given me the resources and support to be my best self. Serving has enabled me to understand the social issues nation-wide and globally, and be able to address them. I am excited to work with Engage Dallas for two reasons: 1) as an incentive for more SMU students to be involved with service opportunities and 2) to give back to the DFW community – a community that has graciously accepted me the past three years.
Engage Dallas Student Director for McElvaney Commons
Why I Serve:
I’m excited about Engage Dallas because it’s important to me to use my blessings to improve the lives and situations of those who need help. Engage Dallas is going to provide a wonderful opportunity to do that as well as involve my peers in community work. I’m looking forward to expanding community outreach and showing my peers the needs that exist and how they can help so that we can all be part of the solution.
