Keshia Bruno-Garza
Brookhaven College has been selected as one of only eight institutions in the nation to receive a prestigious grant that will promote service learning and community engagement at the college.
The grant is part of a $1.1 million initiative, “Community Colleges Broadening Horizons through Service Learning,” sponsored by the American Association of Community Colleges with funding from the Learn and Serve America program of the Corporation for National and Community Service.
The funds, which amount to $14,000 each year for the next three years, will allow the college to focus on No Child Left Inside, a national movement promoting environmental education, conservation, outdoor recreation, public health and a green economy.
Brookhaven College will put most of its efforts toward public health and combating childhood obesity, said Keshia Bruno-Garza, student services specialist. Bruno-Grarza coordinates the college’s service-learning programs through the Student Life Office and will serve as project associate. Oscar Lopez, vice president for student services and enrollment management, will serve as project director.
The college will collaborate with the Head Start Center, which provides child development services to low-income families, and Early College High School, part of the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD.
Students enrolled in nutrition and early-childhood education classes at Brookhaven College will learn to provide age-appropriate nutritional support, childhood obesity awareness, exercise regiment design, and overall healthy living to staff and children participating in Head Start or ECHS, said Bruno-Garza, student services specialist at the college.
“The main idea is that Brookhaven students will take what they are learning in class and apply it to helping community families by providing healthy living tips, healthy grocery-shopping, healthy cooking and overall healthy living advice,” Bruno-Garza said. “We also plan to incorporate distance education students by implementing an online healthy snack/meal service-learning project in which Brookhaven students will create recipes to be used with Head Start and Early College High School students.”
