On Friday, January 21, Chapman Community Relations Manager James Gerrard delivered more than 100 ChapmanU t-shirts to the 5th and 6th graders of Palmyra Elementary in Orange. This all started in December, when Gerrard and his co-workers Alina Sheeran and Grace Larey hosted a booth at the City of Orange’s annual Tree Lighting ceremony. While working at the booth, Aly Simmons, a mother of a Palmyra student, approached James with idea of providing some shirts for the students at Palmyra.

Every other Wednesday, the students of Palmyra are encouraged to wear t-shirts from their favorite colleges or universities they would like to attend one day. Simmons mentioned that the participation rates seem a little low and wondered if Chapman could provide some shirts to help inspire the kids to think about college and to look at attending the one in their own backyard. Gerrard loved this idea and knew he had to help.

A couple days later, Gerrard received an email from Dr. Stephen Glass, a Palmyra PTA member with Simmons. Dr. Glass provided some additional details, and after working together, Gerrard was able to provide the all the 5th and 6th graders ChapmanU shirts.

“To me, community engagement is all about creating opportunities. Seeing how appreciative the school, students and parents were when I dropped off these shirts put a big smile on my face for the whole weekend,” said Gerrard.

On behalf of the Palmyra Elementary School community, Dr. Glass expressed his gratitude for this act of generosity. “We hope the donation of these t-shirts will inspire our students to apply to Chapman University and potentially matriculate and graduate from this prestigious institution,” said Dr. Glass.