JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) - A student at Missouri Southern State University is working to improve his community in a big way.
Lorenzo Harrison, 18, who many might recognize as mascot Roary the Lion, has formed his own foundation that awards scholarships to students who are as dedicated as he is to community service and volunteerism.
“I want to spread the love of giving back,” said Harrison, a freshman secondary business education major from Lee’s Summit.
The desire to give back has always been part of Harrison’s life. When he graduated from high school, he was recognized for having racked up the highest number of community service hours - 7,653 - out of his entire senior class. Most of those hours were spent at Connections to Success, a St. Louis-based nonprofit dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty, where he began his volunteerism at the age of 12.
The Joplin Globe (https://bit.ly/2mVhI7A ) reports the beginnings of his foundation can be traced back to two tickets he received from a friend’s parents in April 2016 to the Kansas City Royals’ opening day game. The team was coming off its World Series win in 2015, and tickets - such as the donated pair he had - were in high demand.
Harrison wasn’t necessarily interested in attending himself, so he put the query out to Facebook: Was anyone else interested? Naturally, he got thousands of responses, likes and shares of his post, and he began sifting through the comments to pick the lucky recipient.
One response caught Harrison’s eye. It was from a mother whose 13-year-old son had been battling cancer since the age of 6. Harrison promptly gave the tickets to that family.
“I wanted to make that dream come true for him,” he said.
By June 2016, Harrison, then 17, was itching to do more for those around him. So he hosted his first fundraising event, a benefit concert in the Kansas City area to raise money for scholarships. About 300 people attended, and proceeds were put toward a fund in what would become his new foundation: Lorenzo Gives Back Inc.
The foundation, which Harrison says is a 501(c)(3), now has more than $3,300 in its coffers. It has awarded two scholarships in its young history, $1,000 each to two graduating high school seniors who planned to enter college in the fields of nursing and psychology.
Funds come primarily from Harrison himself, who is a substitute teacher in the Miami, Oklahoma, School District on his free days, and from donors. And while the foundation largely serves the Kansas City area, Harrison would like to expand it into Joplin and is seeking sponsors in this region to make that dream a reality.
“I’m trying to find the need that I can help with here in Joplin,” he said.
Applications for scholarships for the 2017-18 academic year are due May 1 and are open to students from the Four-State Area. Applications for scholarships for the 2018-19 academic year, which will be open to students in all 50 states, will be available May 2.
Harrison’s next adventure will take him to Orlando, where he will participate in the Disney college internship program. Missouri Southern recently announced that it had become an institutional partner with Disney, a move that gives its students a leg up when they apply to internships at Disney theme parks.
Harrison submitted his application on Jan. 6 after a family member told him about the program. The application asked for information about him, how he would deal with hypothetical situations and his living style (interns are usually housed in dormitory-like buildings on the Disney complex).
He then had a 20-minute telephone interview last week, during which he was asked to elaborate on his job history and which areas at Disney theme parks he would be interested in.
The acceptance email came this week, he said, and he will leave at the end of May for an internship that will last until January. He will receive credit from Missouri Southern for the experience, and he plans to take one or two online courses while he’s in Orlando in order to keep his status as a full-time student.
“It’s moving quickly,” Harrison said. “I’m very excited. I’m looking forward to the engagement with different types of people I’ll encounter. I just want to make sure that everybody’s Disney vacation is the best.”
Harrison has asked to be placed for work in areas in which DECA might compete, such as food service or marketing. As a future business teacher, he expects to be involved to some degree in DECA, an organization that highlights the fields of marketing, finance, hospitality and management in high schools and colleges around the globe.
His goal, he said, is to gain some first-hand knowledge about those fields to be able to enhance his future students’ education.
“I don’t want a book example when I’m teaching,” he said. “I want a real-life experience.”
He looks forward to the internship, but there’s one aspect of Missouri Southern life that he is reluctant to give up: Roary the Lion. Harrison has performed at MSSU athletic events as the official university mascot since September, and he has become quite protective of the role.
“I want my job when I come back” from the internship, he joked. “I like the interaction with people. When they take a picture with me, I smile, and they can’t see that, but it’s there. … This is the image I’ve given Roary, and I want it to stay the same.”
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Information from: The Joplin (Mo.) Globe, https://www.joplinglobe.com
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