Youth For West Dallas

On December 3rd, a group of students from Highland Park High School know as Youth For West Dallas, held it's 3rd annual Carver Elementary Drive. Below is an email to the parents of the students who participated.

Last Saturday morning - the teens were coming off of a late night football win (yay), rainy and cold weather, and an early to rise volunteer day. A perfect morning to sleep in. We truly weren’t expecting many people to show up. Well, in typical Highland Park fashion … we showed up! And it wasn’t just the teens, but the parents too! There are no words to explain the experience we all had last Saturday together. 

A large piece of the Youth for West Dallas Club and forming the Carver Drive Executive Committee is intended to bring people together. Whether it’s driving "across the bridge" to make new friends, building relationships with the homeless, or talking to someone in your grade at a meeting that you’ve never met before.  This volunteer drive was a great example. 

Last week our students partnered with some West Dallas students in organizing the deliveries. The boys from WD were the cutest high schoolers ever! They shared with our teens about their experiences having gone to Carver Elementary growing up. It was eye opening listening to the challenges and struggles going on at Carver. One mentioned that he had seen a teacher try and start the Supply Store and it never worked. It was wonderful that he could witness it taking off and thriving all because of you guys! 

Ty (the Liaison between Mercy Street and Carver) shared with the students about their power to bless others. The importance of giving back and why what they’re doing matters. He painted a bigger picture for them to see. He focused on their commonalities.

The principle of Carver showed up too!! She thanked your teens for all that they are doing with the Supply Store. It was awesome! 

FOX4 News covered the event both Saturday and Sunday! It was SO cute because Jaylen (a former Carver student) REALLY wanted to be on television. Guess what… out of all the people they interviewed- HE was the teen they chose for the news piece! 

THANK YOU!! Thank you! Thank YOU!! You guys made this drive the best one yet! Please thank your children for being a part. Please thank them for having a willing heart to help. Please thank them for taking the time out of their busy schedules to solicit, collect, purchase items because without them it would not be possible. You have great teens! We know they’re not perfect and they’re trying to find their way in many ways (just like we did and still are). You’re great moms! 

Merry Christmas angels on earth- you’ve made some children very happy. :) 

On behalf of the children at Carver- thank you!

Video Clip: 

https://www.facebook.com/youthforwestdallas/videos/1626508830983594/

A few quotes from the students and parents:

“It was a great experience getting to hear about students experiences in West Dallas and realizing how fortunate we are to be able to buy necessities for life and also just little things like socks and toys, so it was amazing being able to share these things with kids who can’t buy them! As much as we helped these kids, they helped us more to realize that we are all the same in the eyes of God!” 

“I loved hearing the guys talk about how they really wanted more mentors in their community.” 

"What an honor to be able to share in the work at Mercy Street and Carver Elementary! I wish you could all see the kids at HPHS and Heights Preparatory - Uplift Education working together to make such a difference. I feel like it was I who was the beneficiary!”

"It is truly humbling and awe inspiring watching the students from Highland Park pour into this Supply Drive. Their hearts to help, listen, and learn give me hope for the next generation. They’re experiencing first hand what it feels like to make a difference in the world around them.”

“I’ve learned that it takes effort to help people. There is bigger world out there with lots of people in need. It feels good to be able to help others.”   

“Thank you for exposing our teens to a new way of life.” 

“My son looks forward to doing the service activities. He never complains. It’s a good thing in his life.” 

Labor of Love

From July 25^th through July 30^th, several of our college interns and student interns from the Leadership Intensive summer program partnered up with members of Mercy Street Church and went south - to Zaragoza, Mexico!  We spent a week serving alongside Rancho Dos Countries, a ministry founded by Debra and Fernando Martinez.  Although their testimony is one you ought to hear in person, it centers on God calling them from a life of wealth and luxury in the States and down to Fernando’s hometown just across the border: Zaragoza.  They live on a beautiful ranch with peacocks, roosters, hens, and horses all running free, and a cool little spring flows through their backyard – which proved to be the perfect swimming hole after a long day of work!  Rancho Dos Countries has built soup kitchens, public schools, and churches in Zaragoza and the nearby towns of Morelos and Nava.  We were privileged to serve in both Zaragoza and Morelos. 

In the mornings, we breakfasted on local foods like fresh eggs from the ranch, homemade tortillas, watermelon, figs, and Captain Crunch if you weren’t feeling so adventurous.  A short devotional and a long quiet time would follow, giving everyone time to process, pray, and sit in their thoughts.  Many of us were able to find incredible rest from the normal chaotic, fun, jam-packed schedule of our Leadership Intensive summer.

Some sort of manual labor would consume the first half of our workday.  On Tuesday, we sorted school supplies for local teachers in a room so hot that stepping outside into the 95-degree weather felt fresh and cool.  We got it done, though, and used teamwork to delegate tasks and work efficiently.  Wednesday’s labor was sorting through school supplies at the ranch to pass out to the children; counting all kinds of backpacks, pencil boxes, shoes, and the like.  On Thursday and Friday, we painted a schoolhouse at the Zaragoza site in shades of bright yellow and peachy orange and sky blue.  A lot of paint ended up on our faces and shirts as well; special thanks to one of our full time interns, Shena, for that J

At noon each day, we helped serve food at the soup kitchen to all the locals who came to eat.  This was a great platform for conversation, as we would grab a plate and sit down beside a friendly face to say hi.  Most of our team’s Spanish was pretty elementary, but our God is not defined by worldly things like language barriers.  We communicated through physical touch, smiles, hand gestures, and broken words here and there.  The food was always good, and always enough – a staple for many of the families who may not be eating on days that the soup kitchen is closed.

After lunch was many of our students’ favorite part of the day – VBS!  Kids would flock to our location each day just to play with us.  We brought out bubbles, soccer balls, coloring supplies, the works; but even if we had brought nothing, our loving interaction would have been enough.  To watch a kid run at you and jump into your arms as a total stranger, with no reservations, just wanting to be loved, is enough to make you question all the walls you’ve ever built around yourself.  For our high schoolers to see poverty in its most raw form, accompanied hand in hand by the inexplicable joy of a child, was a lesson that I beg them to never forget.  Our student interns had many great takeaways by the end of the week, but the two I heard the most were these:

Be grateful for what you have.

Love the kids back in West Dallas as well as we loved the kids in Mexico.

One of our interns, Shanessa (pictured right), wrote a sweet caption about a little boy that she formed a special connection with:

            “I’ve grown so attached to the kids in Mexico especially this boy here.  Jose Antonio.  I didn’t let the language barrier hold me back from getting to know him.  He was a little shy at first but he finally warmed up.  We hugged so many times before I left and I even cried.  We had to go back to the soup kitchen for something and I said what if I see him just one more time, and as we were leaving I saw him outside his house and his face just lit up with happiness.  And I cried because we weren’t allowed to stop.  All the kids will have a special place in my heart.”

We were able to see the way that God is already working in these towns in Mexico not only by providing for their needs, but also by allowing us to be a vessel to share the free and abundant love that He offers us with those kiddos and their families.  I would like to bottle these memories up forever for our students, so that we might never forget the nuggets of wisdom and the truths about life that the Lord used Mexico to reveal to us.

Special thanks to our full time interns, Shanessa, Shena, Akilah, Destiny, Noah, and Oscar, for their hard work and their huge hearts!

Beauty in the Wilderness

After a long Monday of uphill climbing in the Rocky Mountains with a forty pound backpack strapped around our hips, battling off swarms of mosquitos and hot sun, we collapsed at our campsite.  The thirty minute bustle began as students pulled sleeping bags and tents and sacks of food and clothes and wet wipes out of their bottomless backpacks. We staked up our tents and huddled around a campfire to share life stories, warm cups of hot chocolate, and homemade sweet and sour chicken made over a little whisper stove with wind chill whipping around us.  The weather in Colorado is a lot like Texas: bipolar and extreme, with blazing sun during the day and frost around on the grass at night.  This is also comparable to our emotions – crying during the hike (not actually…well, maybe a little) and giggling over card games and silly stories in the evening.  We had several nights containing both tears of empathy over life stories and tears of laughter over inside jokes.  

Our peak day, Wednesday, ended up being more of a plateau day, but we reached the top nonetheless.  Brittany and Matt, our trail guides, woke us up at the crack of 12:20 am, and we choked down some granola and headed up the mountain in pitch darkness, our paths lit by an array of stars, the shiny red dot of Mars, and our strapped-on headlights.  The walk was a bit surreal, and I think our sleepy, dreamy state combined with the rocky climate made it seem like we were trekking across another planet.  We made it to the top of our plateau at 3:30 am, earlier than anticipated, so we laid out our sleeping bags and slept until sunrise.  At 5:30 am the sun began to peek over the landscape, and likewise our students’ heads began peeking out of their sleeping bags to gape at the sun.  Matt read Psalm 104 aloud, proclaiming

“Lord my God, you are very great;

You are clothed with splendor and majesty.

The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

He stretches out the heavens like a tent

And lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

And rides on the wings of the wind.

He makes winds his messengers,

Flames of fire his servants.”

I believe that moments like this made the physical trials of our hike completely worth it.

There is nothing like experiencing the vastness and majesty of nature that really puts God into perspective.  There is a quote by C.S. Lewis that says,

“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Most of our students have been exposed to the Gospel and the story of God’s creation, but it extends to a deeper level once we are in the wilderness of Colorado.  When our students are able to see nature through God’s lens, they can begin to grasp God’s character. They can look at hefty mountains and see His mighty strength.  They can feel rushing rivers and be swept away by His mystery.  They can peer up at tall trees and become conscious of their smallness.  They can gaze up at massive skies and feel the breadth of His love.  Even if our kids never gained any grit, never ate any of their meals, never shared their whole life story or learned more about one another, our prayer is that they would at least have developed a stronger relationship with the Lord.  That they would understand a bit more about how much He loves them and How much grander He is than any of the junk that happens on this earth.

I asked one of the girls on my trip to give me one word to describe the camp food and one word to describe the scenery.  Her response was better than I could’ve hoped for:

“The food was actually okay.  At the moment it was gross but now that I look back at it, it wasn’t that bad.  Everything was so amazing just spending time with you guys and being around the fire late at night and the beautiful stars.  I started to miss it when we got back to Dallas and everything is just so loud.  Now we’re just stuck with all this social media and everything else.  At the moment I hated how we didn’t have service but it was a wonderful break.  Then I find it really hard to connect with God out here.  The alone time in the mornings was my favorite part.  I really loved the experience we had.”

What a gift to see her grasping for a connection with God in West Dallas like the connection she felt in the mountains.  These are the kinds of seeds we love to see being planted.

Mercy Street Leadership Intensive Program has successfully conquered another week in Colorado!

This blog post was written by one of our Sr. Interns, Katie Kelton. Katie will be a senior at Texas A&M in the fall.

Prepared to Launch

From the start our dream at Mercy Street was to witness first hand young children grow and mature into influential West Dallas leaders.  For 12 years we've labored towards this goal, seeking to cultivate committed relationships that spark extraordinary change.  We celebrate the results.  Our average mentoring match endures over 4 years! Nearly 600 youth participate in our sports leagues!

These programs have successfully made us all the more fond of our neighbors and increased our blazing desire to see them do well in life.

This is why we've recently begun what we are calling the Leadership Institute.  We bluntly tell our students our goal is to prepare them to launch.  Students are selected to enter the institute and welcomed to participate in activities during the school year and an intensive program during the summer.

The 10 week summer program proves to be our most impactful time with the students. During this time we seek to develop our student's social/emotional health, marketplace awareness and Christian worldview. We immerse them in experiences that are difficult and build their GRIT and optimism muscles (non-cognitive skills proven to increase their success).  One such exercise is a 7 day backpacking trip through the mountains of Colorado.    We've also started 2 small micro businesses to teach them how the marketplace works.  These businesses ( a cafe and an artisan workshop) will be open 3 days a week and prepare goods for REAL customers.  Students will be exposed first hand to essential skills the marketplace will demand of them.

At Mercy Street we think leadership development is to be taken seriously.  We continue to learn and grow as an organization and learn more about what it is going to take for our students to be ready for the real world.  We invite you to come by and tour these business labs and watch all the learning take place.  Or, support the students by purchasing some of the their wonderful handcrafted goods at mercystreetdallas.org/store.

Emerging Leader | Shanessa Carson

Grade: 11th
School: Heights Preparatory School
GPA: 3.49
Activities: Street Team, Leadership Institute, JV Volleyball Team
Post H. School: Hopes to attend Texas A&M

Shanessa was matched with her mentor, Erin Lewis, in 2009. She has been part of the Leadership Institute for 2 years, participating in Street Teams and the summer internship program. She is now part of the Mercy Street Student Leadership Team and helps lead a small group of 6th and 7th grade girls each week.

Shanessa is a leader not only at Mercy Street but at Heights, as well. Her Bioethics teacher, Mrs. Gaines, had this to say about her: "Shanessa is a very active participant in my class. She continually impresses me with her participation. Shanessa is a critical thinker, and the comments she adds to our class discussion are very valuable and always offer a unique perspective. Shanessa also impresses me with her character. She is a born leader who is willing to stand up for what is right. There have been a few instances over the last couple of years where she has mediated conflict amongst friends. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to teach Shanessa the past 3 years. She is a rock star both inside and outside the classroom."

Mentoring High's and Low's

Working with Dee is full of High's and Low's.
So ended up with these great floor seats for today's SMU game. We were late getting to the game partially due to the "crap" he fights thru everyday. So upon waiting for Dee to get ready, I learned two things. One of his teammates had been shot the night before (should be fine, thank God), and his mom got laid off after 9 months from a great job at a call center.

The up's for the day were this text I got back from him last night - "I really thank God for leading you into my life. You have showed me a lot and I just wanna say thanks for everything you have done for me. I have never had a person care about me like you have, so I just want to say I appreciate you." But the other HIGH, you will love, is he's only played football one year, since I've been his mentor, and that was in the 8th grade at Edison, and I swear it was Vince Young out there. So he got invited to a football camp that Baylor hosted. They clocked him in a 40 at 4.3!

Let's get the kid in Orange!

Have a great week.

Dee is the kid next to me, the other two young men are the boys Trey and Melissa Hill have taken in and are raising as their own.

Sweet Retreat

We believe the First Annual Pine Cove Mentor/Mentee retreat might have been the best event that Mercy Street has ever done!  This was a sweet 24 hour time frame of connecting and building relationships.  All activities were very intentional - from the get to know you questions for the drive down to Pine Cove, to meal times together, to the times of worship.

Cabins were assigned with 5 mentors and 5 mentees, and at lunch, those same 10 people would sit together and get to know each other better! This was a great opportunity for mentees to make new friends and for mentors to get to connect and make friends with other mentors.  This always helps in the journey to have someone else who understands what you’re going through in the trenches and in the good times.

Free time is always the highlight of being at Pine Cove, and we had a whole 3 hours! Horseback riding, basketball, barn swing, canoe riding at sunset - you name it, we did it. There was even a time for mentors and mentees to conquer fear side-by-side on the double zip line!  We finished the afternoon with a team activity: the whole cabin had to work together to come up with a skit to perform using the random props that were left in a bag in their cabin.  Later, everyone got dressed in camouflage and put war paint on their faces for the theme night.  The game took place in the woods and the mentees worked towards a goal to find certain places the mentors tried to stop them.

One mentor, in particular, felt like he had done a poor job mentoring lately and really wanted to use this retreat as a springboard to a deeper relationship. The Lord was gracious to answer that prayer and he left the retreat feeling energized and ready to tackle the rest of the year with his mentee!

The opportunity to be with your mentee for 24 hours allows mentors to see what their mentees are like out of their comfort zone, not too cool for school all the time, but to hear them really share their hearts.

We had an awesome time of worship Saturday night where Darnell spoke about cultural differences and the gospel followed by a breakout time with reflection questions. It was neat to see mentors and mentees all over the room asking questions and sharing.  One of the last questions was for the mentee to make up their own question, and we’ve heard from several mentors that there were some good ones asked like, “Why did Jesus have to die?”, or “How do you tell someone about Jesus?” Good spiritual conversations were had that might not have taken place otherwise.  Later that night we had a camp fire where we roasted marshmallows and had hot chocolate with chocolate chip cookies.

Sunday morning we had a mentor enrichment, followed by a sweet time of worship where Darnell encouraged the mentees that they could be used by God right now while they are young. He used the analogy of a small acorn growing up to be a huge oak tree.  We then had Timothy, an alumni mentee, challenge the mentees to take advantage of their mentors because there are lots of kids who don’t have mentors.  Mentors are there to be your friend, not like another adult that tells you what to do all the time, but truly a friend that’s going to help you through life and guide you.

At the end everyone was given a small journal with these instructions: the mentor is to write a prayer for their mentee and the mentee is to write a prayer for their mentor. After the prayers were written, they switched and got to keep those journals as a sweet keepsake for each to have for years to come, reminding them of the ways the other is praying for them. We also wrote prayers for West Dallas on poster boards and it was moving to see prayers about protection and safety for West Dallas.

Overall it was just an incredible event on all different levels! We plan to keep this tradition going, so please make plans to come next year!

Check out our photo gallery!

A Special Thank You

Hi, my name is Deandre.

I’m happy to say I just graduated from UT Arlington with a Bachelors of Business Administration in Marketing.

I’m the first in my family to earn a college degree.

I just wish my mother could have been there…

I grew up in West Dallas and graduated from Pinkston High School in the top 30 in my class. I assumed that meant I was ready for college, but my Mercy Street mentor along with ScholarShot guided me to Mountain View Community College first. It was clear at Mountain View I needed more and when I did transfer to UTA I still struggled getting a 1.9. This put my public grants at risk so I knew I had to buckle down.

ScholarShot helped me financially but more importantly they provided guidance to navigate college that I would not have from home. I worked hard, and it paid off as I graduated with a 3.1. I work for a major commercial bank in Dallas making about twice my family's total household income. I'm very grateful. I don't take any of this for granted. There are many answered prayers.
    

I wish my mom could have been there but she was recently re-incarcerated. Both my parents love me but have struggled with drug addiction all of my life. My father and more importantly my brothers and sister did come to see me graduate. My younger sister and brothers are working to get their lives together and I'm pleased to say my sister is enrolled at El Centro College thanks to ScholarShot. I hope my brothers will be next.

I know that earning this degree is a game changer for my future and my family. I know that my making it has told my brothers and sister they can too. I know there are a lot of students out there like me.

Thank you for supporting me through ScholarShot. You've helped change my life!  I hope you'll consider helping others as well.

In Christ,

Deandre J.

BS, UTA

Story provided courtesy of ScholarShot.

Basketballs and Hello Kitty!

In 2014, a group from Highland Park High School held a drive to collect items for the Carver Elementary "Carver Store". The response was so overwhelming that they decided to do it again! Last month, the Youth for West Dallas, the name they've chosen for their group, organized another successful drive for Carver! Below is an email sent out to the parents and students who participated.

MOMS, DADS, FRIENDS, FAMILY!!! 

Do you ever feel overwhelmed and honored because you’ve been privileged with the opportunity to be a part of something really special? Have you ever sat in awe, without words, as you watched a purposeful project unfold right before your very eyes? Well, that’s how I felt all last week. As the Youth for West Dallas Executive Committee rallied to collect items, donations, purchase items, drop off items, and prepare for the drive - I watched with gratefulness as our community came together to help those that needed some extra bright spots in their days. On behalf of the cute kids at Carver … THANK YOU!!! Your donations were absolutely perfect! From the basketballs to the daily journals to HELLO KITTY (I was told that they little girls love the Hello Kitty section) to shampoos and toothpaste. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Another off the charts successful Carver Supply Drive! 

Another cool part of the drive was when the staff at Mercy Street took time out of their day to come share with us about how your donations will bless the students of Carver. Natalia Rodriguez (mentor coordinator) and Nicole Livingston (communication & events) shared with the students about the supply room and what these items will mean to the children. Then Sam Flores (Director of Development) led us all in prayer for the school and their community. It was VERY cool to have the parents and the teens pray together (yes, some teens prayed out loud- lol) for Carver and the community of West Dallas. 

In addition, you guys donated $1,800 to Mercy Street this semester! How cool is that! Thank you so much! 

All of this being said, my deepest hope is that you are blessed because EACH OF YOU has blessed another. Thank you for partnering with your children (not just with West Dallas), but in all the different areas of your lives. It’s awe inspiring to see the purposeful parenting and the intentional investing that’s taking place. I know this is a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. Words aren’t enough….. 

It’s really cool to come together as families in this way. THANK YOU! 

xoxo- Mel