Leadership Temple Action Team Project from 2019 Comes Full Circle

Chelsea Vasquez, Temple ISD teacher, presents Chamber staff with a token of appreciation

Leadership Temple, a program of the Temple Chamber of Commerce, is a professional development and education program designed to help current and emerging leaders understand the dynamics of the community and the role leadership plays in its long-term success.

Under the 9-month program, participants meet monthly to survey how the community works from an entirely new perspective, helping them grow as leaders and professionals. The curriculum includes carefully selected topics and locations, chosen in an effort to set a foundation of how and why our community operates and interacts with surrounding communities and the state.

Each participant is also assigned to a small group, known as an “Action Team”, that is tasked with working together to formulate, develop, and execute a project to impact and spur positive change in the community.
 
For the Class of 2019 Education Action Team, the now Alumni of the program, recently saw just that – their project coming full circle to spur positive change in the community.
 
During their program year, this group of emerging leaders worked on a project focused with the focus of showing appreciation for Temple ISD educators. Their program called, Temple Values Teachers, raised funds for the Temple Education Foundation (TEF) Innovative Teaching Grants.
 
TEF awarded grants from the group’s fundraising efforts in January, and one grant supported the Thrifty Wildcat Program. The Thrifty Wildcats Program, led by Temple ISD teacher Chelsea Vasquez, helps students in the Wildcat Plus program learn extra life skills and gain real-life experience. The program is an on-campus thrift store operated by the students with the objective of helping them gain confidence needed to work at a job after they complete the Wildcat Plus program.
 
The students also learn how to make items to sell in the thrift store, including wreaths, which they gave to the Leadership Temple group in appreciation.
 
Join us in congratulating the education Action Team of 2019 their hard work and commitment to their project, that makes a difference in our community:  Zachary McKnight, QuVa Pharma; Jose Ortega, Extraco Banks; Heather Mikulas, City of Temple; Laura Rechtfertig; and Amanda Villanueva, First Community Title.

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