Posts by Ashley Thornton
The Magnificent Colors of Waco
By Diamante Maya “We are a box of crayons, each one of us unique. But when we get together the picture is complete.” The other day I was getting my nails done at a shop in Waco. The shop is run by an opposite-sex, middle-aged, Asian couple. There was a Black mother with her three…
Read MoreBreathing Culturally: Exploring Social Identities (Part II)
(Click here for Part 1) by Jorge Burmicky Last week, I wrote about social identities and how they interact with each other in the context of Waco. I talked about owning these identities and allowing them to inform our engagement with our surroundings. Today, I will spend more time exploring my perceptions of living in…
Read MoreThere’s No Rescue at the End of Jesse’s Story
By Kris Cervantes Human beings are storytellers – we look for meaning through narrative, craft pattern and purpose from the sometimes random-seeming events of our lives. Ideally, stories create meaning and – even more ideally – they have a happy ending. The story of Jesse Washington doesn’t have a happy ending. Jesse died on the…
Read MoreKiera Collins ART program
By Jenuine Poetess This month I had a conversation with Keira Collins, behavior specialist for the Klaras Center for Families YES program and founder of ART (A Reason To…). She has organized the growth of the YES program to include visual and written arts programming, is a volunteer with Waco Poets Society, and I am…
Read MoreBreathing Culturally: Identifying as Latino, a “Baylor Bear”, and a Wacoan (Part I)
by Jorge Burmicky I moved to Waco in 2012. Like many of the stories you’ve heard before, I moved here because Baylor offered me a job. My first time in Texas was the day of my on campus interview. The first restaurant I went to was “Bangkok Royal” for my initial interview – which also…
Read MoreSuccessful Diabetes Study Results May Inspire Insurance Companies to Cover Prevention
By Crystal Hernandez Sometimes good things just keep getting better, and it may have for the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program. You may remember that it wasn’t very long ago when I shared with you that those at risk for developing type 2 diabetes are not necessarily destined to a lifetime of checking blood sugar levels…
Read MoreLearn How To Become A Brain Builder!
By Christina Helmick Have you heard the saying “there is an app for that?” I have an app that automatically texts people when I am in a certain area, another app that keeps track of the steps I’ve taken, and an app that organizes my grocery list based upon food categories. What about an app…
Read MoreImportant Summer Tips for Inner-City Youth from Tupac, Outkast, & Drake
By Krissica L. Harper As an advocate, college admissions recruiter, and educator in the areas of youth and student development, I have noticed that a large percentage of inner-city high school students are not aware of the things needed to start their collegiate, educational, and career pursuits. Like them, I was a kid in the…
Read MoreThe Light We Can See in North Waco
by Allison Allen Living in my north Waco neighborhood has its challenges especially if you’ve read the headlines of house fires and a recent homicide. As a neighbor it is heartbreaking to know that loss and destruction are literally outside my front door. I struggle to reconcile these realities with my personal experience of living…
Read MoreFour-year College or bust? No way! Other paths just as valuable…
By Scott Bland For more than 30 years, our educational system has done a disservice to our kids by teaching them that the primary path to a successful future is completing a four-year degree program after high school graduation. There are many unintended consequences of this educational track. The primary consequence is that kids who…
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