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Community Partners Event Reflections

Engage Dallas hosts 3rd Annual #1Day4Dallas

On October 21st, Engage Dallas hosted their third annual #1Day4Dallas fall day of service. 151 volunteers from all 11 Residential Commons spent their morning serving with 13 of our Community Partners in West and South Dallas.

The day started off with breakfast tacos from Bonton Farms, an urban farm located in South Dallas. The Engage Dallas Student Directors and SMUSH volunteers helped check in the participants, who then heard some inspiring words from SMU’s Associate Director for High-Impact Practices, Audryanna Reed.

Our volunteers were shuttled to our thirteen sites throughout the South and West Dallas communities. They served with After8toEducate, Austin Street Center, Brother Bill’s Helping Hand, Dallas Furniture Bank, Empowering the Masses, Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support, Greenspace Dallas, Jubilee Park Community Center, Legacy Cares, Our Saviour Community Gardens, Sunny South Community Garden, The Bridge Homeless Recovery Center, and Voice of Hope.

Staff and faculty volunteered alongside our students, participating in donation sorting, window cleaning, gardening, furniture building, and many other tasks. Volunteers were able to learn about the Community Partner they were working with, gaining a better understanding of the challenges the community is facing and the ways these organizations are supporting and enriching their neighborhoods.

Student feedback included excitement about working together with their peers, learning about the Community Partners, and helping the organizations in tangible ways. They enjoyed interacting with the employees at each site as well as the individuals who were receiving assistance. It was also an opportunity for students to learn more about the history of South and West Dallas and how that has impacted those who live there.

One student shared that “seeing people from different aspects of life (SMU or community volunteers) come together to achieve a common goal was very impactful. It’s nice to see that we can set aside our differences to work together to achieve more.”

Thank you to all who served with Engage Dallas and made the third annual #1Day4Dallas a success! We invite participants to check back with their Commons to see the upcoming monthly events and continue to serve.

Follow us on Instagram @smu.engage.dallas to stay up to date with Engage Dallas!

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Event News

Engage Dallas Hosts the Second Annual One Night for Dallas Reception

On April 20, 2023, Engage Dallas hosted its second annual One Night for Dallas: a celebration of SMU’s students, staff, faculty, and community partners serving Dallas. The event was held in the ballroom of the Hughes-Trigg Students Center, and guests were treated to a light reception and dinner before the program began.

The evening started with inspiring words from SMU’s Vice President of Student Affairs, K.C. Mmeje, reminding us that while we are celebrating our work this year, there is still plenty to learn and do. His words were followed by our three keynote speakers for the evening: Dr. Crystal Clayton, Executive Director for the SMU Hegi Family Career Development Center, Courtney Cuthbert, Chief Operating Officer for Brother Bills Helping Hand, and Tammy Johnson, Executive Director of Empowering the Masses, who shared their inspiration for service and encouraged the audience to find the source of their own passion.

One Night for Dallas also allowed students to share their service successes. Student leaders from Mustang Heroes, Alternative Breaks, The Big Event, and Engage Dallas provided an overview of their programs and revealed how many hours they spent working with community partners on and off campus this academic year. Together, they hosted over a thousand volunteers and were able to reach out to the broader campus community to encourage service and engagement.

The end of the night concluded with the Service Awards. One Night for Dallas features five unique awards each year, honoring student volunteers, student leaders, and community partners. The final award presented was the Outstanding Community Partner award; it honors two partners who actively participated in SMU’s service programs during the 22-23 school year. We are excited to congratulate For the Love of the Lake and Brother Bill’s Helping Hand for their amazing partnership!

We thank all our volunteers and attendees, congratulate all our award winners, and are ready to see you on April 9, 2024 for One Night for Dallas!

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Reflections Uncategorized

In the Rear View Mirror: A Fall 2022 Semester Recap

Fall 2022 was an exciting semester for Engage Dallas! We hosted 50 events resulting in 1,408 total hours served in the Fall semester, with 8 students earning their Community Engagement Proficiency & Experiences (CEPE) through Engage Dallas. Let’s reflect on some of the highlights from this semester. 

September – Boaz Commons’ Service with CitySquare 

On September 17th, students from Boaz Commons volunteered with CitySquare to restock their food pantry. Students helped load carts of ready-to-go meals from North Texas Food Bank for CitySquare’s mobile food pantry and helped restock the freezers and refrigerators with frozen meats to prepare for the neighbors that would visit the food pantry.  

Last year, CitySquare’s food pantry supplied 2.5 million pounds of food to 11,700 neighbors who utilize their services.  

October – McElvaney Commons’ Service with Genesis Women’s Shelter  

Engage Dallas Student Director for McElvaney Commons, Sabeen Baledina, partnered with 6 other McElvaney residents to volunteer at Genesis Women’s Shelter. They packed donated items into trucks, organized clothing, accessories, and shoes, re-racked items, and sorted new donations. 

When reflecting on the Direct Service event, Sabeen shared, “We were there for 2 hours and made some real progress! Although we were all separated, we all still felt really good afterward. One thing that I really liked was learning so much more about Genesis’ Mission. When we first walked in, Nicole gave us a run-through of what Genesis is all about and how their mission can associate with a thrift shop.” 

100% of all proceeds from their thrift stores go directly to Genesis’ other services for survivors of domestic violence. All of Genesis’ clients can shop at the Thrift Store at no cost. This is incredible because each client can pick out what they need for their unique situation – furniture for a new apartment, interview attire, or new shoes. 

November – Ware and Boaz Commons’ Service with Our Saviour Community Garden 

Ware and Boaz Commons collaborated to host a direct service event at Our Saviour Community Garden. Volunteers were split into two groups: one group weeded two garden beds, and the other group helped load wheelbarrows and wheeled them to different areas around the garden. Volunteers made walkable paths to the garden beds and around different trees throughout the garden with woodchips to prepare for the upcoming season.   

The student volunteers and the Student Directors enjoyed getting to help Our Saviour Community Garden prepare for their next planting season and make the garden a more beautiful place. 

December – 8 Community Engagement Proficiency & Experiences (CEPE) Earned 

In December, Engage Dallas celebrated 8 Mustangs who completed their CEPE through participation in Engage Dallas. Each student completed at least 20 hours of service. Engage Dallas is one of the most widely available opportunities to earn the CEPE required for graduation. Students who consistently volunteer with Engage Dallas could potentially earn their CEPE in one semester! Learn more about getting involved with Engage Dallas here 

General Engagement Event – We Are All Homeless with Armstrong Commons 

The Engage Dallas Student Director for Armstrong Commons, Kelsey D’Esopo, collaborated with the We Are All Homeless organization to host a general engagement event. Kelsey shared the following on this collaboration “I had a great time working with Willie to help him plan and prepare an event that he holds so near and dear. It was another great way to see the impact we as students can have on the community and world around us, despite many of us thinking that we can’t really insight change.” 

Solo Service – Nicole with RowDallas 

Solo service provides an opportunity for SMU students to volunteer on their own schedule and to support unique individual volunteer opportunities. Learn more about solo service here. 

SMU student, Nicole Sood, shared the following about her experience with RowDallas, “I have really been loving my service with RowDallas! The kids are fantastic and extremely bright! The team for RowDallas is also great. They didn’t have anyone to emphasize the Computer Science aspect of their program, so I’ve been lucky enough to put together some basic programming projects for the students and really get them excited about learning C++!”. 

RowDallas makes rowing more accessible to Dallas youth, helping students to succeed on and off the water. They teach students to push themselves beyond the ordinary and discover what they are capable of when they work as a team. 

The Engage Dallas Team is beyond proud of the leadership of our Student Directors and grateful to have served alongside so many world-changing Mustangs this fall. We want to thank the 485 student volunteers who served with us and congratulate the 8 students who earned their CEPE credit. To continue engaging with us, please follow us on Instagram @smu.engage.dallas and bookmark the Engage Dallas Event Calander to stay updated with our upcoming events. To learn more about the initiative, visit the Engage Dallas website.  

 

Categories
Announcements

Love to serve? Consider new individual service opportunity, solo service

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.

Student cleaning classroomHere’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. 

Student and faculty planting vegetables 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  
  • An Engage Dallas Student Director is not present during service 
  • Students must register and respond to monthly check-in emails from Engage Dallas until complete 
  • Students track their individual service hours via the Community Partner process or on their Engagement Hours Log 

Students can learn more and find out how you can get started with solo service today. 

Plus, recognized Engage Dallas community partners can submit solo service opportunities via our online form 

 

Categories
Announcements News

A timeline of some of the rich history of South and West Dallas now available

Engage Dallas proudly present Phase II of the Engage Dallas Resource Libraries. Our Engage Dallas Research Assistants, Shelby Peck and Cristal Mendez have done it again! Back in September we announced Phase I, which encompasses all common-specific social problems and offers a self-paced, deeper learning experience through four different categories.

Mendez, ‘22, a graduate student in the M.Ed. in Higher Education program shares that Phase II differs significantly from Phase I because the focus is truly just South and West Dallas so various local sources had to be researched, evaluated, and synthesized for the creation of Phase II while Phase I was a bit broader. Through this research opportunity, one valuable takeaway for Mendez was the importance of learning  about the history of her community, as she is a resident of West Dallas.

We invite you to journey with us through time. Phase II presents a chronological dive into the history of South and West Dallas. Our trip commences in the year 1865 and we progresses forward until we are back in 2021. We cover topics very familiar like the State Fair of Texas and maybe some that are less familiar, like the contributions of Felix H. Lozada, Jr. As you journey through the timeline, you will be able to read a short highlight about the event and then click into it to learn even more. You may also choose to “hop through history” and follow the timeline of specific events and see how they are connected through history.

Peck ‘21, an undergraduate student studying Public Policy and Political Science, found this research opportunity particularly valuable because she was given the freedom to dive deeper into many diverse subjects in Dallas history, painting a realistic picture of South and West Dallas history as a whole. She was able to draw connections between this research and her future career goals by studying how federal policies and court decisions, like Brown v. Board, were enacted in Dallas, and how individuals were uniquely affected by them.

If asked to leave you with one thought before your journey through time, it would be:

“Learning about the history of South and West Dallas can be difficult because of the inequities that have existed since the beginning. However, our West and South Dallas neighbors possess experiences, skills, and knowledge that contribute to their community’s cultural wealth. I hope you will be inspired by the community advocates that have shaped their communities.”  -Mendez ‘22

“Everywhere you look in Dallas there is a story that has been hidden by Dallas’ ever-changing and developing nature. If you look beyond the beautiful skyline and new construction, you will see even more beauty amongst the unique stories and histories of the individuals that shape our city.” -Peck ‘21

We invite you to spend some time unpacking local Dallas history. We acknowledge that history is steadily unfolding around us as more stories are being told and memories recollected. The resource library is not intended to discuss every historical occurrence of South and West Dallas, as much of their history is still being uncovered and collected. The resource library is a living source and will evolve as more history is discovered.

Get started exploring, here.