Around the State: UMHB student group launches food pantry

The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor chapter of Enactus, an international student business organization focused on changing lives through entrepreneurial action, launched The Source, a food pantry specifically for UMHB students in need. They developed The Source in response to a survey of UMHB students that revealed more than 40 percent of students experienced food insecurity in the last year. In addition to accepting canned food donations, Enactus also worked with Sodexo, the company that manages residential dining at UMHB, to offer a “Share a Swipe” event, allowing students to donate a swipe of their meal cards to another student in need. Sodexo matched the first 200 donations. In one day, 217 students donated meals. Together with the match from Sodexo, the event made available more than $1,000 worth of food to students who need it. Located on the second floor of the Mabee Student Success Center, The Source will be open between 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday.

The John Templeton Foundation awarded a $2.6 million grant to a Baylor University researcher and her colleague at another school to explore virtue development and character strength intervention in adolescents. Sarah Schnitker, associate professor of psychology at Baylor, and  co-principal investigator Benjamin Houltberg, director of research at the University of Southern California Performance Science Institute, received the grant. It stipulates $1.27 million is designated for scholars, practitioners and technology innovators to promote virtue development and improve character strength in adolescents. “In a time where crises of character are becoming apparent at a national and international scale, we are so excited to see how various teams of scholars, youth practitioners and technology or media developers that we assemble can work together to create scientifically vetted interventions that build character strengths in adolescents,” Schnitker said.

Five members of the grounds crew from Howard Payne University helped in the early stages of Brownwood Area Community Garden’s reconstruction project by cutting wooden planks for new garden beds. By shortening the length of the beds, more space will be left for individuals in wheelchairs to access the garden. Volunteer participants from HPU were Allen Fisher, irrigation foreman; Terry Pritchett, vice president of facilities and planning; Kenny Richardson, grounds foreman for athletic fields; Joey Withers, grounds foreman for lawn maintenance; and Harlei Struck, a student worker. The garden reconstruction project is estimated to take several months, and the process will be aided by volunteer work along the way.

Anniversary

15^th for Mark Wingfield as associate pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.

Retirement

Sam Houston after 34 years as pastor at Woodrow Baptist Church in Covington. He will continue to serve on the national religious relationship committee of the Boy Scouts of America, on the executive board of the BSA Longhorn Council and as a national chaplain of the Association of Baptists for Scouting.