Balancing dual-credit classes, preparing for the SAT and studying for upcoming subject tests are all things high school students at O.D. Wyatt High School stress about as they inch closer to graduation. However, sophomore Josiah Snowden has started a mentoring and tutoring program to help make these things a little bit easier for them.

Snowden said one of his main goals was to bring TCU students and the Fort Worth community together.

“I thought it was a great opportunity to have a two-way street of TCU going and teaching others, but then having the Fort Worth community teach TCU students,” he said. “I really wanted it to be a two-way street with both sides having something to give.”

Snowden said he’s always liked interacting with people from all different walks of life.

“I think it is always great when you bring in people with different backgrounds and make everyone the best type of person they can be because everyone has so much to offer,” Snowden said.

O.D. Wyatt Assistant Principal Godswill Barrah said the administrators at O.D Wyatt were excited about this mentoring group because it was a partnership and support group that was much needed.

“It is one thing for us to tell our kids what it’s like to go to college, but it’s a different thing for someone who is currently in college to sit down with a student in an ongoing process, not just a one-time thing,” he said.

A student at O.D. Wyatt says the lesson plans through the program has helped her academically.

“I have been noticing that I have been understanding my work better and that is because of y’all,” the student said. “In the class, I mostly struggle with, some of y’all’s members have really helped me understand physics. They show me examples and do anything to help me.”

Snowden said this group is something he hopes will be ongoing even after he graduates.

“I really want it to be a long program with no definite end in sight to just keep bringing in people with new ideas that actually care about what the program does and what it has to offer so that it can keep contributing and growing it in whatever ways they see best,” he said.