Giving Compass' Take:

• Abigail Pope-Brooks shares how bringing veterans into their communities to work on service projects has benefits for all parties. In Dallas, veterans worked with public school students in disadvantaged schools to boost success.

• How can philanthropy support mutually beneficial projects like these ones? What is the importance of setting examples and mentoring in this context? 

• Learn more about the benefits of mentoring


The Dallas 1st Service Platoon’s mission is focused on The Roosevelt High School Feeder Pattern and the outlying community for their multi-year operation. The Roosevelt feeder schools serve 26% of the disadvantaged students in the Dallas Independent School District.

City Impact Manager Rahiel Alemu said, “Our Dallas Platoon has projects that not only beautify and enrich the local schools but also create positive activities and service opportunities to engage students and their families with veterans.”

“The spirit of service and duty has been contagious throughout this partnership,” said Tonya S. Clark, Principal of Roger Q. Mills Elementary — one of the service platoon’s partner schools.

She has seen how collaborating with the platoon has helped her in her own mission to improve the school. “Mission Continues staff listened to our greatest hope for our school community and took a collective impact approach, working with our teams to plan projects, connecting with other organizations, and sharing resources to make our ‘hopes’ a reality,” said Principal Clark.

Principal Clark explains the difference these projects have made. “There is plenty of research that shows when parents are involved at school, the performance of all the children, not just their own, tends to improve.”

Read the full article on veterans and public schools by Abigail Pope-Brooks at Mission Continues.