Donald Ray Parish Jr. is a pastor who works with Dade Middle School in DeSoto, Texas, and Donald recently made history.
In early December of this past year, he helped host an event at the middle school called Breakfast with Dads. The hope was to encourage more father-son mentorship in the community.
In preparation for the event, Pastor Parish wrote online: “We want to ensure that every kid has a father, grandfather, uncle figure to participate in the FULL BREAKFAST with Dads.”
While the organizers of the event were hoping 50 or so volunteer dads would show up to stand in for the absent fathers of the students, no one anticipated what happened next.
As you can see in the video below, Pastor Parish and others were completely overwhelmed when over 600 men of varying ages, races, and backgrounds showed up to support the young students.
In fact, so many men volunteered for a background check through the school’s volunteer website that the website itself crashed!
“I did it because so many did it for me. Mentors had such a huge impact on my life,” one man said before attending a part of the event where mentors taught young men how to tie ties.
Pastor Parish plans on throwing more events like these “to continue engaging fathers and father figures to get involved in the lives of young people.”
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