Four UTSA students are selected as Team Up Challenge Scholars

Team Up Challenge

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(Nov. 14, 2014) -- UTSA students Fedra Chapa, Joey Cortez, Jose Medellin and Zacharee Ramirez are among 20 college students named Team Up Challenge Scholars by the Silver & Black Give Back organization.

The Team Up Challenge Scholars will each be paired with a semifinalist group to complete a community improvement project. Scholars will receive a $500-per-semester stipend for their work throughout the academic year.

The Team Up Challenge encourages K-12 students and their college mentors to apply what they are learning in the classroom to the real world, bringing education alive in powerful ways. Students create projects that address needs to help improve their community in one of five categories: Arts and Culture, Education, Environment, Health and Wellness, or Uniformed Services. Spurs and Rampage players work alongside the students to help bring their visions to life.

UTSA’s four scholars will each work with a group made up of K-12 students that will receive $2,500 to start a service-learning project. In April, five of the 20 overall groups will be named Team Up Challenge Champions and will be awarded $20,000 each to continue their projects.

Team Up Challenge Scholars are selected based on their ability to lead and their interest in working with young people to make the San Antonio community a better place. They will enrich the lives of their students as college role models, meeting and working with the groups to help plan and execute a project. Scholars also will provide unique insight into the benefits of higher education and will take their groups on campus visits.

Silver & Black Give Back is a 501(c)(3) charity that invests in the community in partnership with the Spurs Sports & Entertainment family of teams. For more than 25 years, its players, coaches and staff have fostered young talent and enriching the community by encouraging youth to become responsible adults and give back to the community.

The four UTSA students selected as Team Up Challenge Scholars will serve as mentors for these projects:

International School of the Americas -- Social Entrepreneurship
Scholar: Jose Medellin, undergraduate majoring in criminal justice
Identifying trees as crucial to our environment and community health, the Social Entrepreneurship club wants to campaign for a greener world. The students from ISA will sell T-shirts, buttons and homemade products from their gardens to raise awareness for a greener community. They will spend the generated revenue on planting trees around the city and will engage the community to volunteer with them, while educating on the importance of green living spaces.

Lowell Middle School -- S.O.L.E. Mates
Scholar: Zacharee Ramirez, undergraduate majoring in finance
Twenty-five percent of the special education students at Lowell Middle School are severely disabled or in a self-contained unit where there is minimal interaction with the general education population. By participating in the Safe Optimal Learning Environment (S.O.L.E.), students will develop relationships with their peers, while working together to educate and eliminate the stigma toward disabled children and adolescents in their community. S.O.L.E. Mates will identify five students with severe and profound multi-handicapping conditions and will provide them with the opportunity to independently participate in active learning.

MacArthur High School -- JROTC
Scholar: Joey Cortez, undergraduate majoring in chemistry
The Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) has 22 acres available to them with the vision of building a multi-purpose facility, yet no funding to do so. With the seed funding, JROTC students will appoint teams to plan, coordinate and build various obstacles to be used by their cadets, other NEISD schools, Boy Scouts and the local community for competition and recreational purposes.

Smith Elementary – Team Tiger
Scholar: Fedra Chapa, master’s student in urban and regional planning
Finding limited access to fresh and nutritional foods in their community and a lack of engagement in regular exercise, the fourth and fifth graders of Team Tiger want to use their community garden as an educational tool for healthy eating and meal preparation. The garden will serve as an interactive classroom for not only students, but also local community members - covering topics such as nutritional science, healthy and affordable meals, home gardening and much more.

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