Even though the Texas legislative session has ended Texas Impact continues to work on mobilizing and educating people on the legislative process. This past Thursday on June 15th Texas Impact staff members Grace Bonilla and I met with Reach Beyond Mission at the capitol building.
Reach Beyond Mission is a sending organization that aims to reach populations in need whether that be refugee camps, remote communities, or medical clinics. Reach Beyond targets populations with little access to faith communities. The three target areas Reach Beyond uses for its advocacy are media, healthcare, and community development. Reach Beyond has been serving the global community for over 90 years with both long-term and short-term missionary projects. To find out more about Reach Beyond visit their website linked here.
Grace and I were honored to have the opportunity to spend an afternoon with one of their short-term mission groups this past Thursday for a lesson on the life of a bill. We took the 20 or so junior high students through the various steps of a bill before it becomes law. In particular, we focused on committee hearings, a vital step in the legislative process. We led the group in a mock committee hearing where the kids got to practice coming up with their own bill, presenting it to the group, and testifying both in favor of and against the bill.
Reach Beyond had just taken their group to visit organizations such as Caritas, Community First! Village, FarmShare Austin, and New Leaf Agriculture which made the middle and high school-aged missionaries primed and ready to discuss food insecurity and homelessness, and how those two issues are interconnected.
Through the mock hearing, the students were shown how important committee hearings are to public participation. It is a critical moment when non-legislators get to make their voices heard. The group was also able to learn about the power a committee holds and more specifically the power a chairman of a committee has. The students were able to see how a chairman gets to decide what bills are allowed to be heard by the committee let alone what bills the legislature as a whole is able to hear.
The engagement and knowledge of the middle schoolers were impressive. They were eager to learn about legislative processes and to talk about solutions to food insecurity and homelessness. We here at Texas Impact are grateful to work with our partners in helping encourage the next generation to be engaged and active members of society.