Performance Report: Region VIII Giving Back!
One of my favorite things to do is to give back to people in need! Through THSRA, I have been able to participate in so many different community service activities each year. This year our region stepped out of the box and found a few new projects to take on!
Our first community service activity included collecting all kinds of books to give to kids in a children’s shelter and to people in the local detention center. The Region VIII members really stepped up for this project! Over 300 books were collected for these two facilities!
Mary Grace Bluntzer, Mckayla Berry, and Scott Myer dropped off over 250 of the books to the Ark Assessment Center and Emergency Shelter for children in Corpus Christi. The Ark is a temporary home for children who have been taken from their homes by Child Protective Services. They stay at the Ark until foster families can be lined out. I would imagine that these kids are really scared during their stay there. Mary Grace Bluntzer, our student president, said “We chose to take the books to the Ark because we know it must be hard on these kids and we hoped that the donation of the books would show the kids that there are still people out there thinking of them.” She went on to say that “the Ark representative was super sweet and when she saw all the books we had brought, her face lit up and you could tell how grateful she was for them”. Our entire region should be really proud for their work in this worthwhile service project.
After talking with the board and student officers, Mackenzie Bryce got the green light to take part of the books to the Brooks County Detention Center in Falfurrias, Texas. This is a facility where criminals are detained while waiting for their sentence. She said that her family member was just hired as the new librarian at the detention center. She was talking one day about how she has been trying to apply for grants to buy new books for the center. Mackenzie knew exactly what to do….donate some of the Region VIII books! Mackenzie said that knowing that Region VIII was able to help two different groups with the book collection was very rewarding. “We gave them something that could possibly help them turn their lives around. Helping these people was an amazing experience that I won’t forget” said Ms. Bryce when asked how she felt about delivering these books.
Our region participated in another community service activity in early February.They went to the Corpus Christi History and Science Museum to help with the Family Day on The Chisom Trail Event. The museum puts on this family fun day every year to show local children “the cowboy way of life.” Ten of our members including Hunter and Fisher Underbrink, MacKenzie Bryce, Tilman and Sarah Haby, Brittany Henderson, Will Pollock, Ana Casas, Cash Fretwell and Mary Grace Bluntzer, went and gave the children a look into what real cowboys and cowgirls do on a daily basis. They brought calf and goat dummies to show the kids how to rope and tie. They got to do hands-on activities with all of the kids and had a great time being kids themselves. They were dressed in full rodeo dress code and the kids, and the adults, alike, were very excited that they were there. We are proud of these student members on their dedication to helping the community. They were great role models for these young children!
We hope that our service activities will continue to impact the community. It is always great to see young involved in positive activities. I think that Region VIII’s project this year were top notch and I’m proud of the entire region for their work! Thank you to everyone that helped make these projects possible! #outworkem
