Students at Clarke Elementary choose different projects to help the community and receive a boost from TCU

By Hy Cotten

May 13, 2010

SuperFrog did not merely show up at Fort Worth’s Clarke Elementary School on Tuesday to amuse those students participating in the SLANT 45 program. SuperFrog came to praise them.

The TCU Horned Frog mascot attended a SLANT 45 function as the guest of Kelsey Patterson, wife of Texas Christian University head football coach Gary Patterson, and the Gary Patterson Foundation.

The head coach had a prior commitment, but Kelsey frankly confessed, “I have to say the kids were probably more excited to see SuperFrog than they would have been to see Gary.”

But seriously, folks. The real stars were the students of Clarke Elementary and its after-school program of some 50 kids.

Four groups of 10-12 students each have chosen to tackle four entirely different community projects: (1) painting over gang graffiti prevalent in the neighborhood; (2) a recycling program through which the SLANT 45 group collects the recycling money and donates it to SafeHaven of Tarrant County, a woman and children’s shelter; (3) a campus beautification program that includes planting flowers and improving the overall appearance of their school; (4) an anti-gang campaign will invite police officers to campus to discuss gangs in the neighborhood.

The Clarke effort is yet another glowing example of how SLANT 45 is impacting the North Texas region. Angie Bulaich, Community Outreach Manager for the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, said more than 5,000 elementary school students have already signed up. The goal is 20,000. The program’s culminating celebration in mid-January has been moved to Cowboys Stadium in anticipation of eclipsing that 20,000 figure this fall.

“The projects that are coming in are obviously kid driven because they’re creative and from the heart, more from a kid’s point of view than of an adult,” Bulaich said. “We’re loving it. There are some really inspiring ideas coming from these kids that live in different kinds of communities.

“Clarke Elementary students have different concerns – one being safe from gangs. I think their principal and after-school director are really enjoying the whole process of empowering their students.”

Kelsey Patterson is a member of the Host Committee’s Kick-Off Concert Series Action Team, and through that effort she heard about the SLANT 45 initiative created by the Host Committee and Big Thought.

“Gary and I talked about the SLANT 45 program because it intrigued us so much,” she said. “So I met with Angie and knew I wanted to get The Patterson Foundation involved with SLANT, in addition to my participation with the Concert Series.

“I think SLANT 45 is wonderful. The Super Bowl brings an infrastructure to a city, and for an event like that to leave behind legacy programs like this, something positive on our community, is wonderful. It will leave the opportunity for Fort Worth and Dallas and all of our surrounding communities to benefit. I think we’ll be seeing the effects of Super Bowl XLV for years to come.”

Besides funding the Clarke Elementary projects, The Patterson Foundation is also working in conjunction with SLANT 45 on a program that would impact students from the entire Fort Worth Independent School District and throughout Tarrant County.

“We’re creating an incentive program for kids to submit their service-learning ideas,” Kelsey said. “We’ll have a review of those ideas and then bring a selected few back out to the TCU campus not only to see the athletic facilities but the academic facilities, too.

“We’ll do it in the summer during the football team’s two-a-day workouts. We’ll end up right as practice is finishing, and they’ll have a meet-and-greet with the team and they’ll get some autographs, meet the coaches, and then in addition to that we’ll give them a Game Day experience in the fall and have them come out to a football game.”

Tuesday’s gathering, meanwhile, stands on its own merits.

“It’s always fun to be around kids,” Kelsey said. “But it’s even better to be around kids who are excited to be doing something good.”

SuperFrog, of course, gets the assist.