Around the State: Buckner breaks ground for Bachman Lake Family Hope Center

Albert Reyes (left), president and CEO of Buckner International, was joined at the groundbreaking of the Buckner Family Hope Center at Bachman Lake by David Hardage, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and Tamiko Jones, executive director-treasurer of Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas.

Buckner North Texas, a division of Buckner International, broke ground Sept. 27 for its Family Hope Center in the Bachman Lake area of Dallas. The 21,795-square-foot, two-story Family Hope Center will be located on two acres in one of the most economically challenged areas of Dallas. Working from school classrooms, church offices, apartments and street corners, Buckner already has served more than 5,000 families in the area this year. “Our service in Bachman Lake began with a simple question: What if we could protect the most vulnerable children in Dallas?” said Albert Reyes, president and chief executive officer of Buckner International. “Buckner helps families rise above their circumstances and meet their God-given potential so that each child is safe and thriving. This Buckner Family Hope Center will enable and empower children to stay where they belong—in their own families.”

Baylor University will team up with students, staff and faculty members from Kansas State University Oct. 4-6 to participate in the first Big 12 Leadership and Service Days event. Students will work at Shepherd’s Heart Food Pantry and several other Waco-area nonprofit organizations. Two representatives from Kansas State’s Snyder Leadership Legacy Fellows program—Marcia Hornung and Ashley Anderson—originated the idea of representatives from each participating school to visit another Big 12 university during the week of a home football game to perform joint leadership or service projects, and they approached Baylor to be their first partner in the new initiative. The long-term goal is to develop an exchange program, where students from Baylor and other Big 12 schools visit Manhattan, Kan., to work with KSU students to serve that community, said Lamar Bryant, director for student leadership education and development in Baylor’s Academy for Leadership Development. “We hope that it will open the door to promoting collaboration, service and camaraderie within the schools of the Big 12 Conference,” Bryant said.

Sam Brownback, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom in the U.S. Department of State, will speak at 7 p.m., Oct. 16 at Dallas Baptist University. Brownback served previously as governor of Kansas and in the U.S. Senate. The Leadership Lecture Series event is sponsored by DBU’s Institute for Global Engagement and the Denison Forum. The event is free, but registration is requested. To register, contact [email protected].

Vigor Awards International named Obiaukor Princess Mokolo, an adjunct professor in Houston Baptist University’s Archie W. Dunham College of Business and business coach in the McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise, as Humanitarian and Volunteer Hero of 2018. Mokolo founded the Lucinma Women Development Centre in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2004. In Houston, she has helped immigrants acquire entrepreneurial and job-readiness skills, while also serving as a mentor to help small businesses improve their effectiveness. She received the award at an event in Toronto, Ontario.