Earn Texas Scholar hours at the Odessa Family YMCA
The Odessa Family YMCA is a proud advocate of the Texas Scholars program.
To allow high school students the opportunity to earn their Texas Scholar hours throughout the summer, the Odessa Family YMCA will allow those students to earn those hours from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.
The Odessa Family YMCA will also be scheduling Texas Scholar by appointment to ensure we have tasks for our high school students. To schedule your Texas Scholar appointment, or for more information email Royal at rmcgregor@odessaymca.org.
Angel Nguyen, who graduated in 2024 from Odessa Collegiate Academy, earned Texas Scholar hours at the Odessa Family YMCA during her junior and senior years of high school.
During her senior spring break, Angel earned 15 Texas Scholar hours at the Odessa Family YMCA by picking up trash at Mike Neeley Park, playing Goldfish with our nursery children, cleaning and organizing our aerobics room and helping the front desk staff with clerical work.
“I recommend it because there’s a really good community, and there’s people here that can help you,” Angel said. “As soon as I called (the YMCA), they picked up and they’re just really kind and they let me in immediately. Just doing different tasks, it speeds the time up.”
According to the Ector County Independent School District website, the Texas Scholars program is a workforce development program sponsored by the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with ECISD, local businesses, and area nonprofits for high school students.
The minimum requirements for community service hours are 5 hours for ninth grade, 10 hours for 10th grade, 15 hours for 11th grade and 20 hours for 12th grade.
Jose Ruiz, who will be going into his senior year at Odessa Collegiate Academy in the fall, also earned 15 hours of Texas Scholar hours during his junior spring break and he explained his favorite job was picking up trash at Mike Neeley Park across the street from the Odessa YMCA Central location.
Ruiz said he knows that cleaning up the park will make a difference in someone’s life.
“Whenever I’d go to a park, it was never too clean and it kind of ruined the whole experience,” Ruiz said. “What we are doing, cleaning the park, it betters the experience for the people going.”
