2024-2025 Year in Review

“Planting seeds of hope,
harvesting futures.”

— Harvest Project

Panther Community Market

This picture was taken on our Grand Opening Day, October 10th, 2024. We received our very first Tarrant Area Food Bank order of 3,000lbs+ and it arrived at 6am the day we opened. These students and volunteers were committed to seeing our Panther Community Market open on time to serve our community! It truly takes a village!

We launched our Panther Community Market in October in partnership with Tarrant Area Food Bank. Our first month we were only open to Paschal Families, our second month we were open to our Pyramid, and our third month on we were open to our entire community! From October 2024 through April 2025 we had 692 Visits to the market. Breaking down that number, we served 224 different families through the Panther Community Market this year! The Market is free and available to anyone who needs it. In collaboration with TAFB we are combatting food insecurity in our neighborhood. This is our Panther Community Market therefore, students, community partners, and parent volunteers help keep it stocked, clean, and ready to serve our community!

Thanksgiving Support

WOW! Our community showed up and showed out this year for Thanksgiving support! All Athletic teams, AVID, Texas Association of Future Educators, Junior Optimist International Club, National Honor Society, Durham Pecan, & Neighborhood groups gathered nonperishable items, donated boxes, donated bags, and collected items. Together we collected enough to pack 70 boxes with Thanksgiving food plus a full bag of groceries. The extra groceries help while students are home during Thanksgiving break! We even had some nonperishable items leftover that we were able to put in our Panther Community Market. Through generous donations Harvest Project was also able to give a gift card of $15 that was included in each Thanksgiving Box to go towards the purchase of a turkey, ham, or pork for Thanksgiving. This year we were able to serve 70 families across our Pyramid for Thanksgiving!

“Thank you for making this Christmas a very special one for my kids. We are so grateful for people like you who give to those who are going through a rough patch. Thank you and may God multiply back what you give to others. ”

— Adopt A Panther "Bow" Family

Adopt A Panther

In December 2024 we were able to serve 62 families across our Pyramid. Together we brought Christmas joy to 198 kids. This was all possible because of the 90+ volunteers who sign up to support Adopt A Panther. We have volunteers who sign-up to “adopt” a Panther for Christmas, from helping collect Christmas Gifts, organizing rooms of Christmas sacks, decorate for the Christmas Drive Thru event, to all the little things in between. We could not do this without generous people who give of their time and of their finances. We want to give a huge shoutout to University Baptist Church who graciously allowed us to store items and use their space to make this all possible! It was such a blessing to partner with them for the first time this year.

“More than anything, I appreciate knowing that someone cared enough to lovingly shop for my children. Knowing kindness enveloped my family was the balm my heart needed to really enjoy the love and peace of the season. Thank you.”

— Adopt A Panther "Snow" Family

Care Closet

Room 131 holds our Paschal Care Closet and our Panther Community Market. Students can come by whenever they need to grab something. This can be a snack to hold them over before lunch, clothes because they got caught in the rain, undergarments and feminine products whenever needed, deodorant if they forgot theirs and they had athletics, toothpaste and toothbrushes if they had to unexpectedly sleep somewhere other than their home, school supplies, and they can even come in and get laundry soap and laundry vouchers to do their clothes. These are just simple scenarios as to why one may visit the Care Closet. There are more complicated scenarios where students come in and get items they need because they were kicked out of their home, a guardian lost a job, or maybe they are considered homeless and need access to basic needs. We believe ALL students should have access to these basic necessities with no questions asked. This year we had 8,044 visits to the Care Closet. When combing through the data, we served 948 different students this year meaning we served 45% of the Paschal Community.

Next Steps

Our Next Steps program steps in when a family needs a little extra support through financial resources. This may look like providing transportation for a student who may need it. That could be a bike or city bus passes depending on their circumstances. This could look like providing Laundry Vouchers + Laundry Supplies so that a family can gain access to clean clothing. This could even look like Harvest Project stepping in to cover a utility bill or rent one month. Our goal is to be able to give a family a hand up in a time of need while ensuring that a students basic needs are met. When a student is always worried about where they are going to stay, what are they going eat, how are they getting to school or work, or how they will shower without water when that bill is past due they cannot concentrate in class. We step in to relieve the weight of worry where we can. This year we were able to provide Next Step services 114 times. We were able to serve 29 students and families with rent or utility support this year.

“I told her I did need help with transportation since I live in an area where we don’t have school buses. She was able to provide me with Bus Passes so I could ride the city bus. After a while, she just started getting me weekly bus passes. The good news is, I have been able to make it to school now. I am glad we have a Care Closet to help with transportation.”

— Paschal Student

Annual Luncheon

Our Harvest Project Annual Luncheon typically takes place the last week of April or first week of May. This is a sweet time for our Harvest Project Family to gather and celebrate the success of the year and dream about what is to come! It’s a great time of fellowship while raising funds to continue to support Paschal students and families for the following school year. This year we had the privilege of hearing from Mr. Gary Brown, the first ever student who was serviced through Harvest Project 11 years ago. He is now a phenomenal speaker who is gifted with many talents. We were so blessed to get to hear part of his testimony and the role that Harvest Project played in his life. This year we sold out of tickets and we had a fundraising goal of $20,000. We added seats and surpassed our goal reaching $25,000! Imagine how many more families we will be able to support this next school year because of such generous donations! Huge shoutout to each and every Harvest Project Donor. Harvest Project would not exist without you.

What’s Your Next Step?

Maybe you are asking yourself how you can get involved with Harvest Project. Look no further than sending an email to Casondra.Castillo@fwisd.org and ask how you can get involved today!

Volunteer Opportunities:

- Mondays: Unload, Prep, and organize Snacks and Care Closet for the week

- Tuesdays: Unload our Tarrant Area Food Bank truck of around 3,000lbs of food and stock the shelves

- Thursdays: Volunteer in our Community Market!

- Become a Bin Buddy! Great for small groups of people wanting to get involved together.

- You can even donate your gently used teen approved clothing!

Have Yourself A Merry Panther Christmas

Adopt a Panther started because a few families reached out to the school in desperation for Christmas gifts during the holiday season. That first year, staff, parents, and community members scrambled to help provide a Christmas to just 6 families. The next year, we knew we wanted to do things differently and over the years Adopt a Panther has become its own well oiled machine serving on average over 70 families each year and at least 250 children. We open up applications in October, start recruiting for volunteers, and by Thanksgiving most of our families are being shopped for and we start planning for the party. We collect the gifts, start sending out party invitations to families, and the week before we get out we get together with all our families to celebrate this season and get their gifts to them.

We pride ourselves on the unique experience it is for everyone involved. Our entire organization became what it is through the adopted notion that we have a responsibility to care for and help our neighbors. These are our people, our community, and together we have the ability to care for one another. For our Adopt a Panther volunteers, this means that their contribution is going directly to someone who shares in this community with them. Many of them are shopping for families that roam the same streets, shop at the same stores, and have children in the same schools and classrooms. Even some of our very own student organizations and teams adopt these families. Each of them picks gifts from the families wish list, shops for them, and wraps the gifts to then be neatly wrapped in our santa bags for families to take home.

For our families, this isn’t your regular assistance program. We incorporate little details to make it extra special. Each family receives an anonymous Christmas name. You’d be surprised how even teenagers get a kick out of getting to be the Rudolf or Candy Cane family. They receive a party invitation for their whole family that ask them to join us in celebrating the season with a Winter Wonderland carnival complete with games, pictures with santa, DIY ornaments, hot chocolate bars, and snacks. They come, they enjoy themselves, they celebrate, and then leave with their gifts in hand ready for Christmas morning.

There’s a reason why we do this. We put in this extra effort and spend the extra funds because we believe that there is value in ensuring that our families feel celebrated and not pitied. At our core, we value restoring and maintaining dignity for our families. That is why we do things with excellence and put in the extra effort because every one of our families is deserving of this. Each year, we have the privilege to celebrate the Christmas season with our Panther family in this unique way. It is my favorite time of the year and we are already so looking forward for next year!

From our family to yours, Merry Panther Christmas!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This is my 4th year working with Paschal Harvest Project, and Adopt a Panther is by far my favorite thing that I get to be a part of. I used to always get anxious. I would worry that families would miss deadlines or that they wouldn't know about the program until it was too late. Then as applications came in, I would be anxious about whether or not we would have the volunteers or resources to take care of all of these families. But each year, by grace alone, everything comes together. Each family gets sponsored, we have a surplus of volunteers, the gifts are neatly wrapped and put into their santa bags, the party is a huge hit, and we all walk away excited for the next year. 

This year was nothing short of year's past. Thanks to our incredible community we got to serve 92 families with close to 300 children. What I love most about our program though, is its uniqueness in being such a beautiful picture of neighborly love. Our volunteers and families are from right here in the Paschal community. They attend Paschal or neighboring feeder schools. They live right around the corner from one another. They probably shop at the same local grocery stores and share in this little corner of the city that we call home. Truly a neighbor caring for one another. 

We also got the opportunity to go the extra mile. We made custom hand-lettered invitations for each of the families and incorporated a winter wonderland carnival to have activities while families waited for their names to be called. The carnival included reindeer food, a popcorn bar, snacks, DIY ornaments, hot chocolate bar, pictures with Santa, and even games. Each kid also got to decorate a carnival bag to take all their goodies home. The kids had a blast and even some of our new families were taken acback by each small detail that made the party so special. My favorite part of Adopt a Panther, though, is the room full of gifts. When you stand in the middle of it all you get such a sense of gratitude and joy. It’s not just a room full of gifts, it’s compassion and love embodied in a big Santa bag with handpicked gifts from one family to another. 

You see, with everything that we do at Paschal Harvest Project, we want to make sure that our families feel cared for, seen, and valued. That is why we put so much effort in the little things, because we believe that this will therefore instill a sense of hope. The hope that tells them they can endure circumstances, overcome adversity, and be resilient. 

From our Paschal Harvest Project family to yours, Merry Christmas. We hope this season will bring you peace and joy! We are so thankful for each of you who choose to partner with us in making a difference in the lives of Paschal. It is truly what makes this the most wonderful time of the year. 

Adopt a Panther 2015

Adopt a Panther was started three years ago with a dream and a vision to bring hope to families during the holiday season. The first year we scrambled. Families in desperation to have a Christmas for their children came forth to counselors and interventions asking for assistance. We contacted the few families that were part of our community team and provided Christmas gifts to 6 families. This year we are blown away by the growth that we have seen. Adopt a Panther 2015 serviced 78 families which came out to almost 300 children. We had over 70 volunteers that consisted of community members as well as Paschal families, staff, and even students. We serviced not only Paschal families but also pyramid families in McLean Middle, Daggett Middle, Daggett Elementary, De Zavala Elementary, Westcliff Elementary, and Alice Contreras Elementary. We are overwhelmed by the response we received from our community this year. As we continued to recruit for families to service we worried that we would not have enough volunteers to take on these families. However, towards the end of recruitment we had more volunteers than we did families! With each gift that we received we were reminded of the love and compassion this community has for one another; the dedication that we have for taking care of our own. As we labeled each gifts with the child’s name we were overwhelmed with what each gift meant. It wasn’t just a gift. It was love and hope extended from one person to the other.

The sweetest moments came to us with an element we had added in an effort to efficiently distribute gifts to families: a Christmas party! We generated invitations and distributed them to all the families. In an effort to maintain confidentiality we gave families their anonymous profile names. Even a small detail like this became special as students giggled and voiced that it was their favorite reindeer or their favorite Christmas thing. As they entered we sang carols led by Santa and they watched a Christmas movie as they waited for their name to be called. Once called, they entered a room with cookies, punch, and Santa pictures. Every detail made it special. Children who were late in middle school excitedly showed their Polaroid with Santa because they had never taken a picture with him. Mothers joyfully talked about putting those pictures in scrap books to keep them as little memoirs. Children snacked on cookies and punch while laughing and playing with their siblings, and they came up to pick up their gifts with faces filled with joy and excitement. Parents would tear-up at the sight of gifts that a stranger would so carefully and lovingly pick out and wrap for their children. It was a perfect night that didn’t feel like a handout or a charity for a family but that truly was a resemblance of a community coming around struggling families to show that they are loved and cared for. Families may have come for gifts that night but they left with that feeling.

To those who volunteered we thank you. Thank you for loving your community and coming alongside us to give hope to our families. You didn’t just serve someone in the city of Fort Worth, but you gave hope and love to children and families that share the same schools, streets, and places with you in this little south side corner of the city we call home.

These are the humans of Paschal. Individuals who struggle, who give generously, who come together to change our community and teach resilience to the next generation leaders.