Leadership Rockwall class to host epic day of community service April 18

Leadership Rockwall Class of 2020 with Rockwall Chamber Board members

The Leadership Rockwall Class of 2020 is hosting the largest one-day service event Rockwall County has ever seen on April 18, 2020.

The goal for their class project, called The Big Event, is to amass 1,000 volunteers to participate in 100 community service projects within Rockwall County – all within a single day.

The day will start with breakfast and a pep rally for the volunteers at San Jacinto Plaza in the Downtown Rockwall Historic Square from 8 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. Then the volunteers will head out to arrive at their project sites at 9:15 a.m. Once all projects are complete, there will be a celebration with food and fun back at San Jacinto Plaza at 2 p.m. to round out the day.

The key to reaching such a lofty project goal will be community involvement. The class urges the community to submit project ideas at the event website – bigeventrockwall.com. The projects can serve any nonprofit or resident in need of help within the cities of Fate, McLendon-Chisholm, Royse City, Rockwall and Heath. They can include project that can be accomplished in four to five hours; things like house painting, concrete repair, fence staining, landscaping, etc. Even projects with large time requirements can be accomplished with a large amount of volunteers.

At the website, people are also encouraged to sign up to volunteer for a project, donate money to help fund projects and fill out a sponsorship form to become a Big Event sponsor. All volunteers will receive a Big Event t-shirt to wear on the day of the event.

Leadership Rockwall Class of 2020 member Shane Hollas emphasized that the project’s success hinges on community members getting involved in any way they can – submitting project ideas, volunteering to help with a project and donating to help fund a project.

“The success or failure of our project this year is going to be how much of the community wants to invest back into the community. It’s going to take more than just the 20 people in our class to make this a success. It has to be everybody within the community.”

Project ideas can be submitted through the website until March. 1, 2020. All projects will be considered, pending approval of the Advisory Board.

The deadline to sign up as a project volunteer and receive a shirt is March 14, 2020.

In years past, each Leadership Rockwall class came up with and developed their own project with the approval of the Rockwall Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. This year, the Chamber Board decided to define a project for the Leadership 2020 class, one that future Leadership classes could continue to facilitate and build upon each year.

“This will be the inaugural Big Event in Rockwall,” said class member Shane Hollas. “It has been pretty intensive. Over the last couple of months, we’ve laid a lot of the groundwork that will be the stability for all future classes to build on.”

Members of the Leadership Rockwall Class of 2020 are:

Lauren Chambers – Benefit Writers
Kenneth Cullins – City of Rockwall, Texas – Municipal Government
Doug Edwards – American National Bank of Texas
Clint Elliott – JER Chilton YMCA at Rockwall Co-Sponsored by Texas Health Hospital Rockwall
Joseph Florance – City of Rockwall, Texas
Kasey Hogland – Williamson Foundation Repair
Shane Hollas – Maaco Collision Repair & Auto Painting
Shaun Kirkland – Rockwall Area Chamber of Commerce Co-Sponsored by Texas Health Hospital Rockwall
Danny Lorance – Rockwall ISD
Ashley Martin – City of Fate
Ingrid Minckler – Ebby’s Rockwall/Heath Office
Jane Norris – Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Lake Pointe
Ben Northcutt – All Care Comfort Solutions
Candice Ozoklie -ServiceMaster Commercial Cleaning In Rockwall, TX
Jeremy Pence – Spidermen Services
Ty Phelps – NTX Indoor Digital Billboards
Matt Rodriguez – Independent Bank
Daidrie Ross – Rayburn Electric Cooperative
Jared Schweers – Key Element Media
Aaron Withrow – Docs Residential Roofing