Imagine having no middle school for your child. That’s the situation for many East Austin families. A new middle school not only fills that void, it creates an innovative learning environment that prepares these kids for college – not just high school but college.

Tomorrow night (November 5), Southwest Key will host an open house for the East Austin College Prep Academy. They’re very proud. And they want everyone to attend.

We had a feature about mentoring and middle school and drop-out rates in AISD in our latest issue (download it here). Frankly, the numbers scare the hell out of me. And if you plan to raise a family in Austin, they should scare you, too.

Great news: Not only can you do something about it, others are doing something about it, too.

Southwest Key has a weird name but you should get to know them because they are the largest Hispanic-serving nonprofit in Austin. They started this middle school where there was none, and it’s going to make a huge difference in Austin’s Hispanic community.

We talked to John Turner, the Interim Director of Communications for Southwest Key.

1. This year there were 90 sixth graders that started the academy. Next year you’ll have a seventh grade and then an eighth grade campus. Who are these students and what middle schools/high schools would they otherwise attend?

We are based in the Govalle/Johnston Terrace neighborhood in East Austin, a neighborhood that has not had a middle school for many years. As there is no local middle school, the students were being bused out to middle schools in other parts of the city.

 Our students come from 26 different schools in Austin and have chosen our school because it is based on the highly successfully YES college prep model that has been ranked among the top 100 schools in America by US News & World Report. 

 2. Why a middle school? Wouldn’t a college-prep program focus on high school students?

There’s a number of reasons why a middle school. We canvassed the local community and parents, and they overwhelmingly requested a middle school. Many parents found it hard to get involved with their kids education due to the busing, so housing the school in our community center made a lot of sense.

We also analyzed research about at what stage was the best place to start affecting education and the drop-out rates, and it was apparent that starting with middle school would have a greater benefit and impact for local kids and families. 

3. So at this open house tomorrow, what can we expect to see?

All of the classrooms and facilities will be open, visitors will also be able to talk to the principal Dr. Nellie Cantu, school staff about the curriculum and approach, and hear from Southwest Key CEO, Dr. Juan Sánchez, about our future plans to expand quality education alternatives in East Austin.  

(Editor’s note: I heare there will also be food and drinks….)

4. I want to support your work with this middle school/academy. What are some ways I can get involved?

We always need advocates and supporters for our approach, which is simply providing an alternative quality education for children in East Austin.

Volunteers are welcome for the many after-school and other support programs, (the Boys and Girls Club is also housed here), offering to host field trips for the students service projects, and donations of school supplies are most welcome too! 

For more information, please contact Victoria Gutierrez at vgutierrez@swkey or 512-583-2567.

ABOUT THE EVENT:  

Open House
Thursday, November 5, 2009
4:30-7:00pm

6002 Jain LaneAustin, TX 78721

MAP TO EVENT

Appetizers, wine and hors d’oeuvres, performance, and more!

 

I’m telling you, someday someone is going to write a book about Alan Graham, founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes. No, a book isn’t right. Too flat.

They’re going to make a movie about him. He’s just that charismatic of a guy. But it’s beyond charisma; it’s the way he uses his brain.

Alan Graham has the rare ability to find the shortest path from problem to solution. You won’t spend 10 minutes talking with the man before he says something so fresh and so startling that the only possible reaction you could have to what he just said is, “Duh.”

Not in an “Everybody knows that,” way but rather in a “Well, shit, why didn’t anybody else think of that?” way.

For example, a couple years ago a short-lived ice storm hit downtown, closing office buildings and reducing traffic to almost nothing. The shelters and soup kitchens were closed, but people still needed food that day, probably that day more than others. Alan Graham got a phone call. Could he bring a truck down?

No, he couldn’t bring a truck down. But he could send some pizzas. How many pizzas did they need?

He called pizza delivery, made them a deal, and had several dozen pizzas delivered downtown. Couple hundred bucks. Lots of people fed.

Maybe that sounds obvious now, but who else thinks to deliver pizza to homeless people during an ice storm, when no one else can come up with a way to help them? Duh.

You could almost stop worrying about the future of Austin philanthropy thanks to Linda Brucker and the team that created A Legacy of Giving.

Since 2007, the program has exposed almost 6,000 students in the Austin, Eanes, and Round Rock school districts, plus a couple of private schools, to the concept of philanthropy. The program is more than a video or a field trip to the food bank; the lessons in giving are actually weaved into the curriculum.

“What we do is engage the students – from financially secure to low-income – to make sure they realize that being a philanthropist isn’t just about money,” says Brucker, “We tell them that every single one of them has time and talent to share.”

For example, one of the program’s early projects introduced students to the problems of hunger and poverty, first describing it at the global level, then describing the problems closer to home. “When we told them that 41,000 children in Travis County have food insecurity, there was this pause,” says Brucker. For the next lesson, a representative from Capital Area Food Bank came in and introduced them to idea of the food bank … and what a nonprofit is. And then for the next lesson, a storage unit arrived on campus. Students got inside, walked around, used math to figure the dimensions, and decided it would be a great place to store food. Fourteen schools and 3,600 students participated in the project they called ‘pack the pod,” raising 32,000 pounds of food in two weeks.

Program administrators train more than 125 teachers on how to use a Web-based platform hosting downloadable lessons and how to bring in resources from the community to make the lessons come to life. Aside from the poverty project, teachers could also choose a project based on Earth Day, which was coordinated with Keep Austin Beautiful. Another project revolved around financial literacy.

“It’s remarkable how these projects are having such an immediate impact on their lives,” says Brucker. One of the schools that took on the Earth Day project started recycling plastic and aluminum – at the students’ request. And students who participated in the financial literacy project reported talking to their parents about the family’s debt.

“We think we’re changing the conversation so that students feel like they’re part of the solution.”

LINDA BRUCKER’S FAVORITE MOMENT

“I was at Paredes Middle School, in the middle of the courtyard, and we were using meat scales to weigh some of the food that the students had collected. One of the students came up to me and said, ‘Are you Mrs. Brucker? Would that be okay if I talked to you?’

So I said, ‘Absolutely!’ Then she got very quiet and very close and said, ‘This is the coolest program we’ve ever had at my school.’

She took two steps back and said, ‘Mrs. Brucker, I’ve always been the one who had to get the food, and this is the first time I got to be the giver.’”

A $4000 donation to Heart House via GiveRealty.

This is genius.

We’re obviously fans of GiveRealty’s business model; the real estate broker donates 25 percent of its commission to the charity of the seller/buyer’s choice, in their name. But using the new website RecognizeGood- also born and raised in Austin – GiveRealty was able to double that donation.

A recent home sale through GiveRealty resulted in a $4000 donation to Heart House, a free afterschool program that provides over 200 low-income and at-risk children in Austin with access to caring adult mentors, homework assistance, art enrichment, computer learning, health and safety education, and literacy programs.
 
Because the gift to Heart House was channeled through RecognizeGood, an Austin-based philanthropic website, and doubled through a matching gift program generously supported by RecognizeGood’s corporate sponsors TyRex Group and ABC Home and Commercial Services.
 
“The generosity of TyRex Group and ABC Home and Commercial Services significantly increased the impact of our donation to Heart House”, said Loew. “By providing a forum where Central Texans can recognize and reward acts of kindness, RecognizeGood is encouraging philanthropy in a very innovative way.”

All this from a home sale. Think about how many home sales there are in Austin. Think about a25 percent of all that real estate commission, double it, and picture that going to a local charity.

Our mission for GivingCity (when we can finally get back to it after all this ridiculous for-pay work) is to make it easier for donors and volunteers to connect with the best-fit opportunity for them. We want to help you navigate the nonprofit world.

But folks, I mean this in the nicest way when I say it … you still might have to do a little bit of work.

Take this recent conversation I had on Twitter with a person who was looking for a very particular nonprofit to donate to. I was happy to help point her in the right direction, as were many of her followers, I’m sure. But I think she was looking for the easy click. I mean, I think she’s become so used to communicating, connecting, creating, and in general, executing everything online that she’d forgotten about other useful means of communication, like the phone.

It can happen to anyone. The fact is, it should be much easier for donors to connect with nonprofits. If only you could Google the type of organization you want to donate to, and the exact match would pop up every time!

Unfortunately, the same people who deliver services to the people in need are the same people SEO-ing their homemade websites. Which of those two tasks do you want them to do better?

Have you ever been moved by a public service announcement? Have you watched a video on YouTube that inspired you to reach out to the community and do something?

We’ve all seen those little videos on YouTube, another website, or even television, and usually we’re alone in front of the screen. But there’s something powerful about a shared video experience, especially one in which the video relates to a cause or need in the community. And when a video reaches out to you with hope rather than need, it’s a wonderful thing to share with an audience.

That’s the idea behind Lights.Camera.Help, a new nonprofit film festival that will screen 12 documentaries, videos, and PSAs over two nights, July 31 – August 1. It’s the brainchild and work of David Neff, Aaron Bramley, and Rich Vazquez, Austinites with roots deep in the local film community and the local nonprofit community.

I posted earlier about their launch party in May, and you can read an interview with them and see photos from that event here.

You’ll want to get tickets for this event because it’s not just a screening, it’s a competition. Judges will choose the top video effort from among the 12, and donate the entire two-evening’s ticket sales to the nonprofit that’s the subject of the winning video.

Get tickets and see all the details at Lights.Camera.Help!

July 31 – Aug 1

Tickets $7 – $15

(Don’t forget to go to the wrap-up party on August 2.)

See this video for more information:

Thanks to Starfish Television Network.

This article first appeared in GivingCity Austin #3 magazine. To download the entire magazine, click here.

The data referred to in this article can be accessed via Greenlights here.

The data is in – the Austin community has more nonprofits per capita than any other city in Texas. Now what should we do about it?

We demand efficiency from nonprofits, requiring them to do more with less – and these days to do even more with even less. So when we see two or more nonprofits with the exact same mission, going after the same donations from the same people, we might wonder why they don’t join forces.  We might also wonder how they survive in this economy. Inevitably, the market will take care of it, right? Just as it does in the for-profit world?

Well, sometimes the market doesn’t  take care of it. That’s because nonprofits aren’t fueled by just donations, they’re also fueled by passion – which is sometimes all you need to keep your organization going. And thank goodness for that; we’d be in serious trouble if it weren’t for volunteers and underpaid nonprofit professionals. On the other hand, you have to ask yourself, as a donor or a volunteer, “Am I supporting a nonprofit that shouldn’t exist?”

Austin has more nonprofits per capita than any other city in the Texas. Which means we’re caring and entrepreneurial on the one hand, but probably frustrated and disillusioned on the other. When someone starts a nonprofit it means they feel there’s a need in the community that’s not being met And while one can appreciate their energy, it takes more than a 501c3 classification from the IRS to be an effective nonprofit in the long-term.

We asked five nonprofit advisors their views on the issue; these aren’t just nonprofiteers, rather they’re people in the position of changing the way Austin nonprofits work as a community. Here’s what they had to say.

Deborah Edward professor at the RGK Center, a nationally recognized philanthropy think-tank.

The idea that there are too many nonprofits in Austin is a refrain. But while we complain about it, a city like Boston boasts about it.

From our perspective that means we’re not thinking collaborations or efficiencies. We’re not taking advantage of opportunities. In business, these new ideas for a company come up, and you get investment bankers invested so they can see the idea, and in the end, everybody makes money and everybody’s happy.

But in the nonprofit world, we don’t have those investment bankers…except for these funders. They are in the wonderful position to respond to these new nonprofits and say, “Hey, why don’t you get together?” I bet you can find a number of funders that have experience asking two organizations to merge, but the lessons learned are kept within the family. They don’t have a forum to share those stories and encourage people to think differently about going from the initial idea of merging to creating a program that’s sustainable.

I think we need to map the different nonprofits visually in terms of access, value, and fees you can see distinct dimensions … but who’s going to make that happen? The funder’s in the position because he gets 20 groups that knock on his door, and he can do a better comparison than the groups on the ground. It’s not that he has the responsibility to do it, but he does have the opportunity.

Greenlights has done a great job of helps nonprofits discover opportunities for synergy. But otherwise there’s nobody driving the train. The Austin Community Foundation would be a great place, though traditionally it has been donor centered. The Community Action Network or the United Way have that macro view that could be enlisted to help with this. The zeitgeist is to say that there are too many nonprofits. The challenge is to flip that and say, “We are the best connected system of nonprofits in the United States.”

Matt Kouri, executive director of Greenlights, which helps Central Texas nonprofits by providing consulting, resources, and nonprofit training in areas from fundraising to how to start a nonprofit.

What’s most remarkable about this data we’ve put together is that it validates what I’ve been hearing from funders anecdotally – that we do have a disproportionate share of nonprofit organizations, especially compared to other cities of similar make-up. The data for Austin is not totally inconsistent with what we see in other communities. And we might have a disproportionately large share of nonprofits that don’t serve Central Texas solely or that serve all of Texas. But we share the belief with donors that having too many nonprofits is a problem.

That being said, there are some positive sides to having so many. It can mean that more is being done in our community and that there’s lots of innovative problem solving at work. But it can also mean there are some redundancies and inefficiencies in the sector.

The silver lining in this down economy is that it might force more nonprofits to realize that they can’t cut it on their own and maybe it’s time for them to make some hard decisions. That’s our hope. I can think of at least 10 different organizations now that really need to do it, and they’ve needed to do it for a long time, yet they continue to bang their head against the same wall every year.

As to who’s responsible for identifying and leading these mergers and collaboration, I think funders need to be careful. They aren’t at the street level. They can demand and expect results and impact but it’s the nonprofit’s job to make sure those dollars are spent accordingly. At the same time, funders can exhibit influence over their grantees, especially when they see logical opportunities for collaborations.

Greenlights is investing a lot of time into this issue this year. We worked with RGK to develop a continuum of steps nonprofits can take in terms of strategic consolidation. A lot of nonprofits are already engaged in some form of collaboration, which donors may not realize. But there needs to be a lot more, and it needs to move further down the continuum toward merger.

People who follow the nonprofit sector know that in 2010 it’s going to see some radical changes. We want to help make that change intentional as opposed to just happening to us.

Barry Silverberg , president and CEO of Texas Association of Nonprofit Organizations, a statewide organization that offers training and support to Texas nonprofits and individuals who want to start a nonprofit.

Personally, I don’t believe in the numbers games because they’re always a function of who’s asking the question. I’m also not concerned with donors who believe they are getting too many requests. I encourage them to make their requirements more clear.

I don’t believe it’s our responsibility to eliminate those choices. Obviously funders can openly decide the fate of the industry by not giving funds, but I don’t believe they’re in the position to say what a nonprofit should do to be more effective. I think the question should be, “How do we get nonprofits to be more effective?”

TANO believe individuals have the right and the means to create better possibilities to serve the community. We help people understand the issue and determine if the best response is to create a nonprofit. From there, we emphasize what it means to run an effective nonprofit.

I think the nonprofit sector has a significant advantage in that people engaged in that sector are able to “do good,” and I don’t think we do enough to leverage that. There are probably too many nonprofits that are ineffective… because they ignore the stuff that could help them be more effective. I also think that funders need to strike a balance between the information they can gather quantitatively on the various forms they use, with the information they gather qualitatively. The fact is, some folks aren’t as good as completing a grant application – but they have a passion that’s unbelievable. That passion, if it’s combined with skill sets and competencies, will result in something effective if it’s guided and focused.

Janet Harman , founder, and Jenifer Esterline, program officer, KDK-Harman Foundation, a family foundation that focuses on education for economically disadvantaged Central Texans.

Harman : It’s a complex issue because at first glance one would say there are so many that we should consolidate and reduce. However, there’s a lot of room for creativity, so squashing that innovation would be a mistake.

We have actually brought several national nonprofits to Austin, so I couldn’t very well argue that there are too many nonprofits here.

I really think it’s the job of a lot of area foundations and organizations like the Austin Community Foundation and Greenlights, to point out where there is some opportunity to optimize by merger.

We reach out to other funders on a regular basis. In fact, we co-founded an education funders group, Central Texas Education Funders, a little over a year ago. We meet every other month and there are 30 members. One of the projects we’re working on is to put together a matrix of our fundraising efforts to identify the gaps.

Esterline: The model for Central Texas Education Funders is based on the Ready by 21 Coalition, which put together this matrix identifying common indicators, and we’re trying to create a similar one for the funding community. It would help us, but it would also help the nonprofits; they create about 15 different reports to different foundations, so we’re doing this to learn what they’re doing and how they can do it better. Then the other part of that is communicating this information.

As far as whether there are too many nonprofits in Austin, I would say that we are not overwhelmed with requests, but we are pretty focused on what we fund. In conversations among the education funders, we see that everyone’s funding the same nonprofits. They’ve been identified as effective and able to show their impact, so they rise to the top every time.

Everyone has the responsibility to collaborate and communicate. The new face of philanthropy is more transparent, more cooperative. A lot of our colleagues are embracing this because of people like Janet Harman who are young, entrepreneurial, and have a new way of thinking about philanthropy.

To see a list of existing nonprofit collaborations in Austin, click here.

My sister’s the introspective type. She’s also the type who just puts down her purse and gets things done, which is part of what I love about her. She doesn’t work but she keeps herself busy with a number of projects, and right now, she’s rescuing dogs.

My sister lives in San Antonio with her husband, two dogs, and four cats. These are animals she’s rescued because she just can’t bear the thought of their not having good homes. The problem is, she can only rescue so many dogs, and apparently San Antonio’s pet rescue network is nowhere near as strong as ours in Austin. Their no-kill shelter has a waiting list to get in, and there are only two animal cruelty officers for the whole city.

So what happens is she’ll come across a case of dog abuse and take it upon herself to help the animal, sometimes climbing a fence to give it water, fresh food, some attention, and a new blanket or some shade. It’s the kind of thing we all want to do when we see an animal who needs help, but we don’t do because we don’t want to get involved – or arrested.

She’s been doing this a while, but she’s totally overwhelmed by all the cases of abuse she comes across. And I’m not just talking about dogs with warm water, I’m talking about dogs who suffer disease, starvation, heat exhaustion… really horrible, preventable things.

I tried to talk to her last night about other ways she can act that will have an impact. She said, “The thing is, Monica, I don’t want that job. I don’t want to do it.”

And yet, it depresses her to witness the cruelty.

I think everyone needs to find that point of action where you start to feel a little more in-control, where you feel comfortable that you’re making a difference. For some people that satisfaction comes from helping just one, feeding one, rescuing one animal. But for my sister, that’s not enough. And yet, she doesn’t want to do more, not because she’s lazy – she is nowhere near lazy – but because she’s overwhelmed.

For three years, Shelley Seale would travel to the orphanages of India, bags loaded with treats and toys to share with the children who had made such an enormous impact on her. After all, these were the same children who inspired the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Each time she got to know the children’s stories a little more, which compelled this Austin writer to compose a new book called, “The Weight of Silence: The Invisible Children of India.”

“I hope that people will see that even though this topic is serious and the stories often heartbreaking, it is not a depressing book or subject!” says Seale. “The kids’ hope and resilience amazed me time and time again; the ability of their spirits to overcome crippling challenges inspired me. The issues are tough, what has happened to a lot of these kids makes you want to cry – but the bottom line of their stories is a very strong, hopeful voice.“

I interviewed Shlley to find out what compelled her to travel, return, and make the children of India such a big part of her life.

What prompted you to travel in India and get to know these children?

In early 2004, I read an article in Tribeza magazine about Caroline Boudreaux, who had visited India three years earlier. She had happened upon an orphanage full of children living in incomprehensible conditions and had returned  home and started The Miracle Foundation, a nonprofit which raises money and recruits sponsors to help support the home. I began volunteering for the organization and sponsored a child, and Caroline invited me to go to India with a volunteer group. My first visit was in March 2005.

Was the situation what you expected?

Yes and no. When I arrived that first time, I assumed all the kids there were orphans in the true sense of the word – their parents had died. Instead I was shocked by how many of them had been “orphaned” by poverty; their parents had left them at the Miracle Foundation home because they were too poor to feed them, which in some ways seemed an even greater tragedy. I wondered when each of them had stopped wanting to go back home, or if they ever had. Afterward, there was simply no way to go on with my life afterwards as if they did not exist.

I had gone expecting it to be a sad place, an emotionally wrenching experience with these parentless young people. But those expectations had been turned on their head. Yes, there were stories behind each one of these children – many of them painful and tragic. Yet the man who ran the orphanage, and the house mothers, had made the kids their own in a community of sharing and acceptance. They were poor in wealth but not in spirit; limited in resources but not in joy and laughter. They gave me a complete unconditional love, for nothing more than showing up.

This kind of journey isn’t for everybody… is it?

Probably not. The specific type of trip I took with The Miracle Foundation, the volunteer trip to the children’s homes, is not the same as a sight-seeing vacation.

India is definitely a complete culture shock for someone who’s never been there, especially if you haven’t traveled in a developing country before. The poverty and hardship is stark and in your face. At times, quite honestly, I just wanted to look away and say I’d had enough. But the suffering remains whether we choose to look or not. They do not go away simply because we decide that to be a witness to them, to say I care about your story, is too difficult for us.

But still, like I said before, the moment you meet these kids, that all goes away. I have been on four different trips with all kinds of different people, some of whom love India and some who barely tolerate it, yet every single one of them fell in love with these kids and had the time of their life.  It’s amazing how this experience hooks you – I sometimes tease Caroline Boudreaux about putting something in the water. But the truth is, we go thinking about giving something back, and in the end it’s us who end up getting something amazing out of it. We are the ones who get rescued.

I guess sometimes it seems hopeless. There are so many children who need help. What do you think?

The truth is, each person can create incredible impact with even small actions. It’s a ripple effect, and I have seen it happen over and over, so many times I can’t even count them. Most of us could never sell all our belongings and go work in the trenches in India, but that doesn’t mean we should think, then, that we can’t do anything at all.

If you can change the course of the life of ONE person – still, that one person’s life is different and better because you impacted it.  I think that’s worth it. Don’t focus on the big picture, just focus on what you are passionate about, what you want to do. For me, I can’t constantly think about the 25 million kids in India who live in orphanages or on the streets – I can only think about the one who is in front of me at that moment.

What do you hope to accomplish with the book?

My sole purpose in writing the book was to give these millions of children a voice that could be heard by others in the world who, I was convinced, would be as moved by their plights as I was. And so, the main thing I hope to accomplish is awareness – followed by action. Some kind of action. I think the key is to discover what you are passionate about, what you have genuine feelings and caring about – and then do something about that issue. But just do something.

To learn more about the book, go to Seale’s website or purchase one from The Miracle Foundation. Note that for all books purchased through The Miracle Foundation, all proceeds are donated to them.

It’s a movement. It’s an opportunity. It’s an event.

It’s a lot of things. So to clarify, I talked to Armando Rayo of Hands On Central Texas (which is part of United Way Capital Area) about Vivir Unidos.

Q. So what is Vivir Unidos? 

Mando: It’s basically a volunteer fair for Hispanics. But it’s also a celebration of our culture and an opportunity for anyone to connect with the Hispanic/Latino culture in Austin.

There’ll be about 30 nonprofits there, reaching out to attendees to talk about volunteer opportunities. We’ll also have several local restaurants serving up food from all kinds of Hispanic cultures. There’ll be music and dance, of course, and Loteria. Plus we’re hear about the city’s Hispanic Quality of Life Initiative and our own report about Hispanic volunteering and community engagement.

Q. Wow, so there’s going to be plenty to do, but who’s it for?

We’re hoping to attract Hispanics and Latinos in Austin who are looking for ways to support their community. But it’s also a great opportunity for local nonprofits to get to know the culture and what drives Hispanics and Latinos to volunteer. Traditionally, I would say that Hispanics/Latinos are not asked to serve. Maybe it’s because so many of the people that are served are Hispanic/Latino, but I also think it’s because nonprofits need to gain a better understanding of the motivations and hurdles Hispanics and Latinos have for volunteering.

It’s absolutely essential to include Hispanics/Latinos in the service to that community. Not only do they understand the culture and language better, but they can be visible role models who demonstrate that Hispanics/Latinos in Ausitn need to be part of the change.

We definitely hope to see the Hispanic community represented, but anyone can attend. Families and children welcome!

Q. So what will attendees get out of it?

Mando: Well, they’ll have fun. It’s at the Mexican American Cultural Center, which is a few blocks south of the Convention Center and just off the west side of I-35.

And, really, the main goal is for people to learn what they can do to make a difference. They’ll come away with a list of resources for becoming more engaged, and they’ll learn a little bit more about the culture.

Q. GivingCity will be there. But now’s a good time to talk about details.

Mando: You’d better be there! Okay, here are the details…

VIVIR UNIDOS!
Thursday, June 18, 2009 
6:00 – 8:30 PM
Mexican American Cultural Center
600 River Street, Austin, Texas 78702

An event hosted by United Way Capital Area and Hands On Central Texas. Come learn about how you can get involved in the community, and enjoy activities for the whole family!
* Vivir Unidos Loteria (which is basically Mexican bingo)
* La Feria de los Voluntaries (the Volunteer Fair part)
* St. Edward’s Ballet Folklorico (dance performance)
* La Esquina de HEB (HEB Corner)
* Comida Latinoamericano (Nom, nom)
* Special presentation of “Making the Connection Volunteer Report” by
Hispanic Community Leaders.

PS: There’s still time to be a sponsor! Sponsorship levels from $200 to $5000. Get creative and email Mando Rayo with your sponsorship inquiries.

Check out how Austinite Linda Medina rolls with community engagement…

How I LIVE UNITED: Linda Medina from elmundodemando on Vimeo.