So it has definitely been almost a year since I have posted on my blog. With upper-division college course work, law school preparation, and a plethora of other activities, I put writing about my passions and community work on the back burner for a little while. Well guess what . . . IT'S COMING BACK! YAYYYY!!!!
Although I am not a current titleholder, I hold worldwide service very dear to my heart and continue to work daily to positively impact as many people's lives as possible. A couple posts ago I wrote about participating in Project 2012. Well this year I also had the pleasure of returning as a team lead to project 2013 in the same Dove Springs neighborhood which lies a few miles southeast of the University of Texas campus (if you are unfamiliar with project, scroll down my page and read the post from last year). This time around I volunteered at the Community Fair held at the local Middle School. It was an entire day (literally ENTIRE DAY, I was there from 5am-6pm!) filled with meeting amazing community members, teachers, and even students.
I was extremely touched
by the close knit community and their efforts to help raise their
underrepresented school district to the top. Community members, parents,
and students informed me how they have never had a college event at
their schools. Inspired and motivated by these children's curiosity and
eagerness to attend college and reach beyond expectations, myself along
with a couple other students have decided to put on a Discover UT event
for this school district. It will function as a mini Explore UT with
representatives from each college and major sharing their major and
passion through small activities and demonstrations. The main goal is to give students in this neighborhood direct exposure to college students from a variety of backgrounds as they "discover" the world of college through cool projects, games, and activities.
This was such a spontaneous idea of mine and it has been the most amazing feeling to watch everything fall into place with so many enthusiastic UT students and Austin community members on board to help as much as they can. I am extremely lucky to co-team with the brothers of Zeta Psi and Beta Chi. I am so appreciative in all their fundraising and publicity efforts. I had the pleasure of meeting with a few community members this morning including the Social Worker and Parent Support Specialist who works in Austin ISD, Jose Carrasco. The students are getting pumped about getting to hang out with college students and tinker with cool projects pertaining to a multitude of future options for them.
The event is planned for April 27, 2013 from 10am-1pm. If you are interested in contributing in any way (time, ideas, donations, etc) Please contact me at lora.chowdhury@gmail.com.
University of Texas has a famous quote of "What Starts Here Changes the World" - We are taking strides to change the world starting right here in our very own Austin community.
Stay tuned for more details on the event along with other updates!
PS. I wish I had pictures from this year's Community Fair so I apologize for the lack of visuals on this post. Promise future ones will have some!
