Gobble \u2019til you wobble! Turkey giveaways in the Coastal Bend<\/a><\/p>\nNueces County Precinct 3 Commissioner John Marez served as one of the keynote speakers. He told attendees that his own path into public service began with mentors who visited his school when he was growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat seed is planted and it may take years, decades, before it fully grows,\u201d Marez said. \u201cBut I think that\u2019s the way to do it \u2014 go into schools, go into nonprofits, go into every institution you can to share with them the variety of subject matters and jobs you can get into.\u201d<\/p>\n
The luncheon also highlighted the work of youth boxing coach Jose \u201cCoach Joe\u201d De La Paz, who mentors at-risk kids in the community. De La Paz shared how his family experienced nearly three years of homelessness during his childhood, but he found stability, purpose, and a career in boxing. Now he uses the sport to guide young people facing their own challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad always told me, you can either work hard and learn from your mistakes or you can be a smart man and learn from others,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s better if I talk to someone who\u2019s been through that journey to help guide me there.\u201d<\/p>\n
De La Paz said the simplest encouragement can have lasting power.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people do that, you don\u2019t realize how impactful you can be with a kid,\u201d he said. \u201cThe voice when you tell them, \u2018you can do it\u2026 you can finish this,\u2019 that stays in their head.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both speakers told attendees that mentorship doesn\u2019t require a title \u2014 only presence, consistency and a willingness to invest in the next generation.<\/p>\n
The Northwest Business Association plans to host the Inspiration Luncheon twice a year, every March and November, with the goal of bringing young people and local role models together on a consistent basis. Officials say the March event is more geared towards young women as March is Woman’s History Month while the November event is mainly for young men because it is Men’s Health Month. However, anyone is welcome to attend either event.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The event, hosted in Robstown, brought community leaders together to spotlight the power of mentorship and to promote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-58621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}