New Idea!

So a new idea came up because we were having problems with how we were going to transport the students from Houston to Chinquapin. The students will be selected from nearby schools such as Highlands Elementary and Hopper Elementary School. These students will have no problems with transportation since they live nearby. The program will be held during the summer. The student will be provided with lunch. We aren't so sure how we are going to feed them. We have been talking to people about being able to get free food for the students. We have been researching and looking at how Greg Mortenson raised money with his organization Pennies for Peace, Frank Duffy (panel member) is involve with this.

Half way there!

Looking back at all that I have done with my Senior Project, I feel like I have made a lot of progress. I feel that I have learned how to manage my time more efficiently with dealing with this project. I started off with the idea of helping people and starting an institution in a poor country. This idea was way too big to start off with. But as time went by I needed a smaller project but with the same intentions. I decide to partner up  with Robert Ramirez in a project in which helping others is the goal. The project is creating a summer program that gives students a new perspective on learning and teaching. It will give students who need help with education and it will help students who have a passion for helping others. We will be giving students who achieve in school have an opportunity to teach those who need help in school subjects. We will also try to have the older students give personal advice to younger students. So far we have talked to a lot of people that are going to help us in the future. We have started to read Three Cups of Tea by By Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin. We plan to schedule interviews at Whittier Elementary. We have contacted Kathy Heinzerling, she is in charge of the Breakthrough program. She has helped us contact Frank Duffy who is in charge of Pennies for Peace. This relates to the Three Cups of Tea. We will get help from him in analyzing data that we collect. With the past research that I have done I feel that I have learned a lot about communications. I have learned to be patient and wait for feedback from certain people. I have learned that its not that the people you contact don't care. Its just that the people have too much going on and don't have time to respond. We have scheduled a day where Welcome Wilson Sr ( Chairman for the University of Houston) will help us analyze information we have gather.   The people we plan to invite onto our panel are:

Betsy Phillips: Betsy works with advertising. Therefore she could help us advertise our program.Betsy will evaluate the creativity of our advertising.

Laura Acosta: Laura works with H.I.S.D. She has been very helpful by giving us information on certain students. She has recommended we interview certain students that have bad backgrounds.She will evaluate us with how well we did our interviews and the creativity of the project. 

Frank Duffy: Frank works with the Pennies for Peace, he is helping us help students out.He will be our financial adviser. Frank will evaluate how much the project makes progress.

Dana Lipinsky: Dana is my mentor and she is on the board for The Chinquapin School. She will help us get the word out to the board and get some tips from them. Dana works with communications and keeping relations with companies. She will be able to advise us on how to communicate with others. she will evaluate us on how well we communicate within our program.

Rob Christy: Rob is Robert's mentor, he is also part of the board and he will help us by evaluating us on our program. He will evaluate how effective our presentation is.

Welcome Wilson Sr. : Welcome will help us analyze all of the information, Robert and I gather with our interviews. He will evaluate the overall project.


In January we have to meet with Laura and the students she recommended us to interview. We have to meet with Frank Duffy, to discuss how we are going to actually start doing the project. Over the winter break we have to finish reading Three Cups of Tea.