If Permian High School’s Students in Philanthropy wins the Dallas Cowboys Community Captain Initiative, they hope to partner with the Permian Warrior Partnership to clean up the Memorial Gardens duck pond.
Back in October, the Dallas Cowboys and Chevron announced the launch of the Dallas Cowboys Community Captain initiative in Midland and Odessa. The initiative invites teams of local high school students participating in the Abell-Hanger Foundation’s Students in Philanthropy program to partner with a local nonprofit organization to develop a service project to benefit their community. The team which submits the most impactful project will be named the Community Captain and receive support from Chevron to implement their idea, a news release said.
The student teams were asked how they would make the greatest impact in their communities if they had $10,000 and plenty of volunteers. The top four teams pitched their idea to a panel of judges from the Cowboys, Chevron, and Abell-Hanger Foundation at The Star, the Cowboys’ headquarters in Frisco.
Chevron will award the team selected as the Community Captain $10,000 to implement their project in the spring semester, the release said. Permian’s SIP team was chosen as one of the four finalists.
After presenting their projects, the students got a special Cowboys experience, including a tour of The Star.
Permian was paired with the Permian Warrior Partnership to develop and potentially implement the community service project.
Jessica Orosco, Professional Communication/SIP Coordinator, said this was a project given to them by the the Abell-Hanger Foundation, through Chevron.
“They’re the ones that proposed the project to us,” Orosco said.
Paris Ovalle, a 17-year-0ld senior, and Mariana Arenivas, a 16-year-old junior, are in their first year in the organization.
The Permian Warrior Partnership helps veterans get back on their feet, Ovalle said.
Its website says it is a “veteran-focused, community-led initiative to proactively connect with all veterans and ensure access to quality resources and opportunities available in collaboration with the community. We aim to cultivate an integrated, resilient, and prosperous veteran community within the Permian Basin by improving veteran quality of life thus ending veteran suicide. Supported by funding from the Permian Strategic Partnership and the Abell-Hanger Foundation, it is the culmination of the Community Integration program.”
Ovalle said they wanted to help the veterans by cleaning out the duck pond and “just show them the love that they have in West Texas because there’s not really a lot of places in Odessa, or really Midland, that show that type of appreciation, so we just have to be a good thing.”
When they found out they were finalists in the competition, Ovalle said it was very surreal and they didn’t believe it at first.
“It’s still kind of hard to believe, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we were just really happy and we were proud of each other for achieving this accomplishment,” Ovalle said.
SIP also raises funds for grants to other organizations, but the Dallas Cowboys Community Captain Initiative is separate from those efforts. They award the grants in the spring.
“We do fundraise for other organizations and that’s what we’re in the middle of figuring out who we want to fundraise for and what our goal would be,” Orosco said.
Arenivas said Orosco convinced her to join SIP to help the community. She was somewhat surprised by being named a finalist in the competition because of who they were up against.
“But I’d say it was well earned. Our hard work paid off,” Arenivas said.
The SIP class has about 27 students. Arenivas said it was surprising that high school kids would would want to help the community.
“It is, knowing our generation and knowing how selfish a lot of people have become over the years. I feel like having a class this big, being able to help our community is very eye-opening,” Arenivas said.
Like Ovalle, Arenivas said they chose veterans because not much attention is paid to them for their hard work and dedication to our country.
On the memorial, they would like to include the names of the veterans, where they served and the years that they served.
“In Odessa, there’s not really a memorial for our veterans so taking part in being one of the first memorials for all generations of veterans is kind of cool,” Arenivas said.
