Students Honor MLK by Aiding Kids at Risk
By: Office of Media Relations | Jan. 27, 2009
Alpha Phi Omega fraternity members and volunteers with the UT Dallas Jumpstart program helped prepare a space for a nonprofit after-school program as part of a Martin Luther King Day service project.
The group of 22 volunteers painted a mural and picked up trash around the Heritage Square apartment complex in southwest Dallas, where the program will be housed.
The after-school program, being developed in conjunction with the nonprofit Project Still I Rise Inc., is designed to serve inner-city kids who cannot make it to YMCAs or Dallas city recreation centers.
“Thank you so much to you and your wonderful students for all their efforts today. What a grand gesture,” Joseph O’Brien of the Heritage Square apartments wrote to the volunteers after the project’s completion.
The UT Dallas Jumpstart program is part of a national program that pairs at-risk children with adult volunteers in intensive, yearlong relationships to build literacy, social and emotional skills. UT Dallas and eight other prestigious universities across the country are partnering with Jumpstart for the first time this school year.
Project Still I Rise is a community-based nonprofit agency in continuous operation since 2002. The agency’s mission is to empower youths for academic and social opportunities through mentoring and leadership development.
Media Contact: Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu
UT Jumpstart volunteers and members of Alpha Phi Omega created a mural for an after-school program at the Heritage Square apartments.
Media Contact:
Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, 972-883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu, or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu.
