For the past two years and counting, Toyota Financial Services (TFS) has been investing in the community of Lancaster through its Toyota Leadership Academy, a collaborative effort with Lancaster ISD (LISD) designed to prepare students for success in all aspects of their lives, from personal to academic and professional. The program’s goals include increasing high school graduation rates, improving college and career readiness through STEM and business programs, and introducing young adults to the many different types of careers available to them.
South Toyota, a dealership in Dallas, has helped extend Toyota’s support for students and families even further. South Toyota offered an internship program for Lancaster High School (LHS) students while TFS has created an exciting scholarship opportunity to make college more accessible. The internship — another collaborative effort with LISD — launched last summer with one student. Dr. Benjamin Hargrove, district development coordinator for LISD, says the plan for the future is to increase the number of students who will intern at the dealership for the entire summer.
“It’s an internship opportunity where they cycle through … all the departments, so they do business, customer service, maintenance, finance — all the different things they can do to essentially get all aspects of the business,” Hargrove says.
Cedric Hudspeth, 16, found out about the internship through his engineering teacher and was the first participant. He says of the application process, “It was pretty simple. I gave all the information that was needed and the whole process was a breeze, thankfully, because it was my first time doing an application.”
The prospective engineer says that, initially, he was just excited to join the program in order to be around cars — something he’s passionate about. But the role ended up exceeding his expectations and providing so much more.
“I liked the fact that I was able to see how a whole dealership works. I knew that I was going to be able to learn important skills, whether it was career skills or life skills, from the people that worked there,” he says, adding that his first experience shadowing a salesperson taught him strategies that he feels could be useful in many different applications aside from sales.
After that, he rotated to the service department, where he honed his problem-solving and communication skills while assisting customers with their concerns. His last station was the parts department, where he learned more about the actual mechanics of automobiles.
He encourages his fellow students to apply for the internship this year, too.
“I’d tell them to take every opportunity that they’re offered. I say this because it’s always possible that any opportunity that you take could introduce you to something that you want to do as a job,” Hudspeth says.
That advice could easily translate to the $20,000 scholarships being awarded by TFS to four deserving LHS seniors this school year. Recipients are chosen based on both financial need and an exemplary display of leadership. “The students have to apply to it and the criteria are very rigorous,” Hargrove says.
The scholarship awards each recipient $5,000 annually for four years, starting in the student’s freshman year of college, for a total of $20,000. This helps ensure they stick with their education with the goal of earning a bachelor’s degree, which can be in any field of their choosing.
According to Hargrove, the scholarships are another example of how Toyota Leadership Academy supports students in the community at each stage of their lives, from elementary and high school to college and, ultimately, in their careers.
“So essentially, I’m working with Toyota, as well as other partners, such as Texas Instruments, to increase the cultural capital of students, as they say in academia, meaning their access to what the possibilities are and their access to map out their progress for careers, whether that be the college route, or certification route, or whatever the case may be,” he says. “We’re happy to have these partners and we’re happy to let people know that they’re helping us.”