Patricia Hernandez, Communities In Schools of North Texas Site Coordinator, describes how her campus gives back to the community.

November 1st to November 15th marked the 4th Annual Thanksgiving Food Drive at Hedrick Elementary in the Lewisville Independent School District. Each year, our donation benefits Christian Community Action's (CCA) food pantry.

Hedrick Elementary school counselors, the Communities In Schools case managed program and the Communities In Schools 21st Century afterschool program worked together to encourage students to bring in as much Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix as possible. Each afternoon, selected students from the 21st Century afterschool program gathered donations from each classroom. This was a great and fun opportunity for us to incorporate math lessons. The students learned about sorting, addition, multiplication and graphing the results.

This is the first year that Lewisville ISD has been involved in the food drive, offering 2 points for every item collected. The school with the most points will receive a surprise award.

At the end of the two week period, Hedrick Elementary collected 4,870 boxes of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix! This is triple the amount that was collected last year.
Through the LISD contest, Hedrick Elementary earned 9, 740 points. Winners of that point system are yet to be announced. Through Hedrick's own prize system, the top 3 classes will all receive a pizza party and/or coupons for local restaurants.

The best part of the entire event is that many of Hedrick Elementary students will benefit from CCA's food pantry. Hedrick is a Title I school with over 85% of our students identified as economically disadvantaged. Our students learned a valuable lesson in being model citizens by giving back to their community.

Adam Aldridge brags on a University of North Texas volunteer who went beyond her class requirements to be a positive influence as a mentor to a student at Chisholm Trail Middle School in the Northwest Independent School District.

Shelby Riley started this year as a class-required 15-hour volunteer from the University of North Texas. At her first meeting with me, she expressed interest in becoming a mentor, and I told her that I like to have a longer commitment before I match her with a student because I didn't want the relationship to dissolve once a mentor meets their class requirements of volunteering for 15 hours. She immediately told me that she would definitely be around for the long haul and really wanted to be a mentor. I had the perfect student in mind already and set up the first meeting for Shelby's next visit.

During Shelby's next visit, I gave her a brief background on her student and some of the behavior issues her teaches and I had been seeing. Shelby seemed a little nervous but up for the challenge. I brought the student to my office. I introduced them to each other and the mentee didn't say much. Shelby started asking her some questions and her student would reply back with 1-word answers. After a few minutes I gave them some games to play and left them alone to talk. I came back at the end of the meeting time and let them say goodbye to each other. Shelby told her mentee that she would see her next week at the same time.

As I walked Shelby out, I asked her how it went and she said her mentee didn't say much. At the end of the school day her mentee came up to me and told me she really liked Miss Shelby and couldn't wait for her to come back. They've met together 8 times now and they are really building a good relationship. They play games, do homework, eat lunch, and talk together for an hour once every week. Her mentee still has room to grow, but the teachers are definitely starting to see some improvement in her behavior and grades thanks to her time with Miss Shelby.