CISNT CEO Blog

Communities In Schools of North Texas has some incredible mentors.  Capital One, Wells Fargo, EDS, General Electric, Rotarians, TWU & UNT students, Flower Mound High School Spanish Language students, Robson Ranch seniors, Lewisville Kiwanis, many others and now FritoLay members of the amazing Adelante group.  Maruchy at FritoLay is going to rock the world of 2 young girls at Hedrick Elementary!

I find it very hard to explain how big it is to a CISNT student to have a mentor.  Let me share a story that may shed a bit of light…  General Electric employees, locally here in North Texas and as far away as Hawaii, take time each week to send a message using our CISNT eMentoring application to a 5th grade student, ePal, who they mentor from their workplace.  One 5th grade boy in our program is easily the biggest horror movie fan I have ever met - Chuckie, Jason, you name the scary character and he loves him.  Somehow, we matched a GE ePal to this student who seems to be as big a fan of scary characters as our student. 

The student’s 5th grade social studies teacher was sharing with me this week that her student often goes to one of the class computers to see if his mentor has sent a new ePal message to him.  Today, she heard him reading the last message he received, you see he’s read it three times already this week, but it means so much to him he reads it over and over again.  The message isn’t particularly profound or deep, but it represents a personal connection the mentor has already made with our student.  See for yourself:

Hi Bawi,

It was fun talking about the scarry movies with you.

I will be home for Halloween.

Have you talked to the librarian at your school about famous people from New York?

Have a fun Halloween.

Jerry

— Original message was:

HI my name is BAWI and I like to talk to you so much because you know alot of scary things.and you are so nice and good.

And when are you coming to tell me more scary stories?AND what are you going to be at halloween? Goodbye.

BY BAWI  and don’t be scared.

It takes so little effort sometimes to make a great difference in the life of a CISNT student.  Ask Jerry…

I love meeting new people, it’s probably one of the best things about my role as CEO at Communities In Schools of North Texas.  Even after six years it nevers grows old telling people about our amazing kids and our great organization.  And I seem to always walk away having learned something that I can take back to our team at CISNT to make us a better organization.  You might think that after being in the community day in and day out year after year that there wouldn’t be any more surprises (you know “nothing new under the sun”) but today, I was surprised, again…

While I was out and about ”Living United” for the Denton County United Way, I had the great pleasure of speaking to an amazing group of people at Hulcher Professional Services in Denton.  As I queried Jennifer Hulcher about this great company that dates back to the 1940’s, I was in awe.  It’s an amazing story of hard work, passion, dedication, process, technology, commitment to service, and a culture of family. 

I usually arrive a bit early when I speak to a group.  I like to meet people and quietly observe the culture, attitudes and capture the pulse of the organization’s culture.  Somehow, something seemed different to me as I observed the staff at Hulcher.  Later, as I shared the Communities In Schools story with them, I saw in their eyes a genuine concern and compassion for our children that was inspiring.  

Communities In Schools of North Texas is deeply grateful to Hulcher Professional Services.  Not only because they are running an outstanding United Way campaign that will provide support to all of our United Way of Denton County partner agencies, or for the encouraging example of hard work, team work and a commitment to being the very best you can be that they are, but for the compassion they demonstrated today.  On behalf of our entire CISNT family, we wish you an extremely successful and satisfying United Way campaign!

I love to get out of my office and visit our dropout prevention programs.  Among other things, it always reminds me why we work so diligently to build partnerships that will produce the financial and volunteer support that fuels Communities In Schools of North Texas.  Last week I had the very cool opportunity to see the birth of our new 21st Century Community Learning Center after school programs in Denton.

The Texas Education Agency grant we wrote (and won) that funded these 8 new intensive after school academic enrichment programs took the investment of dozens of people totalling hundreds of hours.  The result was an inch plus thick document that we drove to Austin for consideration. 

I remember the day we were notified of the $1 million grant award for this great new program.  It was surreal, euphoric and absolutely exciting.  I love it when hard work pays off for the kids we serve.  Then reality hit… We have a TON of work to do!

Last week I eagerly drove from my office in Lewisville to Hodge Elementary and Lee Elementary in Denton to witness the first day of this new program.  I met a very cool 3rd grade boy who really wanted my help with his math homework.  I met four 5th grade girls who were way too cool to talk to me at first but after I started a debate about the coolest thing about being in middle school next year they were hooked.  I saw a 4th grader who I know will be a challenge for our staff each and every day - and I wondered to myself, why is he so desperately trying to get the attention of our staff.  I imagine his story will not be a pleasant one to know. 

But most of all, as I met kids and watched our staff run this new program, I saw kids who, without this new program, would not be in a warm, safe, constructive and enriching place at this time each day after school.  You see, they are looking for someone to follow - I think it should be our great staff and amazing volunteers and mentors…

Basically, I witnessed our visions and dreams for 800 children jump from pages of the grant and come alive before my eyes.  As I drove home, a feeling of joy, pride and contentment covered me like a blanket - the work we do is so very important, it’s the work of changing lives.