The Dads of Dunbar Mentorship Program invited professional NFL player Ashton Lampkin to lead a conversation with students about entrepreneurship at Dunbar High School in Fort Worth on February 11.
Students gathered in the library anxiously waiting to hear a hopeful message from the twenty-eight-year-old guest speaker.
The Dads of Dunbar Mentorship Program provides father figures to those in need and holds monthly sessions, according to WFAA. The website for Dunbar High School shares that the group is made of dads, uncles, grandfathers, and community leaders. The Witherite Law Group of Dallas and Fort Worth ISD also manage the program.
Among the Witherite Law Group is paralegal Nicholas Smith, one of the program’s mentors.
“For these students that are here, whether you have a father in the home or outside of the home, you have a father here at Dunbar High School,” Smith shared.
The program sessions talk about life lessons, scholarships, job interviews, and sometimes tricky controversial topics otherwise hard to speak about.
According to the Facebook page for Dunbar High School, the Dads of Dunbar Mentorship Program held a breakfast meeting from 7:30 a.m. until 8:25 a.m. on February 11, with Lampkin leading the show.
“Invest in a Student’s Success. Father’s and Father figures, you are critical to the academic, social, emotional, and behavioral success of our students. Come be a part of the planning of YOUR for dad’s only club at Dunbar High School,” the post shared.
“Never give up,” Lampkin told the students. “This is very important to me because I came from this area, this high school. We have to build our community up, and it starts with us.”
Lampkin is an Oklahoma native who played college football at Oklahoma State and professionally for Washington and Kansas City.
“It really means a lot when people are actually trying to help out the community,” Tenth-grade student Jonathan McLane said.
During an interview with WFAA, students said the Dads of Dunbar Mentorship Program sessions leave them inspired with positive affirmations.
