Teens for

THE DO GOODERS

Story by ALYSSA HIGH

Photography by HUNTER LACEY

Art for A Cause

After volunteering at an animal shelter called Operation Kindness, Ursuline Academy of Dallas junior Mags McKinney discovered her love for animals. When looking for a way to incorporate her interests, she remembered the weeks she once spent at Children’s Medical Center, and how bored she was. To try and fill that time and brighten the children’s stay, McKinney wrote, illustrated and published 1,000 children’s books to hand out at the hospital.

Her book Incredible Creatures features endangered species like the red panda, which is illustrated on the cover with facts about each animal and cartoon drawings of her own design.

Previously, McKinney has displayed her art through selling stickers and Instagram GIFs, creating blankets to donate to The Linus Project, and volunteering as a face painter at school fairs. Last year, she started creating mini digital coloring books that she would donate to the children’s hospital with a pack of crayons for each coloring book.

“The great thing about Ursuline is that they really love to push their students to be involved in service,” she says. “The biggest thing is being willing to trust your instinct, and if there is something you think will be of service to others, go for it. Be willing to adventure with your passion and have perseverance.”

Though McKinney’s passion for art is not new, the book was a venture outside of her typical mediums of traditional painting and drawing.

“I had to research where to print the copies, how to reach out to the hospital, how to create a crowdfunding site,” McKinney says. “Even researching each of the endangered animals so I could make sure the information was reliable took a lot of time. I had to be committed.”

McKinney aimed to raise enough money to publish 500 books within a month of starting her crowdfunding campaign, but she was able to raise twice the amount in the first day.

“I am glad that there are so many others out there who are as passionate as I am about giving back to kids and raising awareness for endangered species,” she says. “I was able to produce 1,000 books instead of 500, which is just really amazing.”

When she isn’t coming up with a new artistic creation, McKinney is participating in many extracurriculars, including the Ursuline swim team and the sailing club. She also serves as an officer of the school’s chapter of the National Honor Society and vice president of the French National Honor Society.

Toe-tapping teens

When two Hockaday students were searching for a way to incorporate social impact into their education, they thought, “What better way to be impactful than to dance?” Mary Grace Sporl and Jane Taten decided to introduce elementary school students to the fine arts by teaching third and fourth graders dances to perform for their parents.

The Hockaday School’s top dance classes aim to participate in social impact every year, led by the student leaders of the class.

“Hockaday is trying to move in the direction of making classes and school more social impact-oriented,” Sporl says. “Kids who might not have the best day at school or the best home life get to come in and just dance. At the end of the day, social impact is about happiness and bringing people together.”

The girls’ two dance classes traveled to Foster Elementary to teach jazz and hiphop. Later, the students performed what they learned for their parents and teachers.

“Especially because of COVID, we are always on social media wanting to be a certain way and look a certain way,” Sporl says. “Dance is all about expressing who you are and expressing yourself and your gifts and talents. We really see the kids shine.”

The idea came when Sporl and her classmates visited an elementary school last year to perform for the students and wanted to find a way for the students to get involved.

“It’s like the little kid in the SpiderMan jacket showing his SpiderMan signs. Just getting them to embrace their personalities and expressing who they are,” Sporl says.

When it comes to social impact, the girls are also looking for ways to bring the art of dance to people who don’t have the opportunity to participate. To give elementary schoolers an opportunity to participate in the dance world, Taten organized a costume drive to donate dance costumes to the Foster Elementary students. Taten received so many costumes that she is looking to other organizations like South Dallas Cultures to donate to.

“We could dance for things like money or ourselves, but we do it because it brings more joy to be able to teach these classes,” Taten says.

Though this year’s children’s performance is over, Hockaday dance students are also bringing the fine arts to neighborhood senior centers by performing an excerpt of their ballet on Dec. 14.

be wavethebe changethe

When four local teenagers learned about people experiencing homelessness at school, they began noticing how many people in their community were unhoused. The group put supplies into backpacks, filled their cars and handed out the supplies to people experiencing homelessness whenever they could.

Their inspiration began seven years ago when a Plano teen was inspired by the people he saw experiencing homelessness every day along the

Dallas North Tollway service road. To help, he started filling bags with water bottles, protein bars, beef jerky and Subway meal gift cards and gave them out as he saw people in need. He called it a LifePak.

Four students at his former middle school learned about the project and decided to carry on his legacy. These students, now seniors at various high schools in the area, call themselves the LifePak Initiative and have taken on the goal of helping as many people experiencing homelessness as they can through backpacks filled with food, water and other necessities by partnering with other neighborhood teens and nonprofit organizations. Though COVID-19 made conducting safe donation drives difficult, the LifePak Initiative has completed 16 donation drives in neighborhood schools and distributed 450 LifePaks, 160 winter coats, 420 knitted hats, 140 winter gloves, 120 woven scarves, 160 baseball caps and 240 pairs of socks. As the students distribute more LifePaks, they’ve adjusted the contents according to needs that arise. The meals started out as sandwiches and chips, but the group felt driven to do more. After partnering with the local nonprofit Cooking for the Crowd, the LifePak Initiative has cooked and delivered more than 720 hot meals. Other groups have shifted goals to partner with the LifePak Initiative as well, including Passing Hats, which shifted from delivering knitted hats to cancer patients to donating to the homeless population, and the Jesuit Ranger Trap & Skeet Team, which contributed winter clothing that was handed out with LifePaks.

“Our goal is mainly to spread the word and influence our generation to go out and help others and reach more people to help others that are experiencing homelessness,” Acosta says.

Jesuit senior Nicholas Archer is one of these founding members. His schedule is packed with cycling team practices and school and familial responsibilities, and he isn’t the only one. Fellow founders and Plano West Senior High school seniors Julian and Jaimi Coleman are active in theater, and Naaman Forest senior Victor Acosta is a martial arts instructor.

Yet, the four spend their free time filling backpacks with resources for people experiencing homelessness in their communities and around Plano and Dallas.

“I have family members and a lot of people I care about that have ended up on the streets due to an unfair situation, so I sympathize with these people out there,” Acosta says. “I feel like it’s part of my obligation as a person who was able to get out of that situation to help others.”

Throughout the past few years, the LifePak Initiative has developed relationships with neighborhood schools to develop donation drives at Frankford Middle School, Shepton High School, Plano West High School, Jesuit College Preparatory School, Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy and Naaman Forest High School. Each school was also given posters, flyers, ads and donation boxes to promote the LifePak Initiative’s mission.

“The big thing about what we do is relationships,” Julian Coleman says. “Without these relationships with these different schools and districts, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.”

All four members are working to find others to take over The LifePak Initiative when they graduate this spring.

In recent months LifePak focused on gaining sponsorship with Preston Hollow United Methodist Church to work as a subsidiary under their nonprofit status so that they can accept donations. The donation portal and website aren’t published yet, but the group has high hopes for the future.

“We’d also love to partner with other organizations that help people experiencing homelessness so that we can form better relationships and have a better understanding of their needs and how to support them,” Archer says.

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