PROSPERTIMES Friday August 4, 2017 | Prosper, Texas
VOL. 1 | NO. 13
Prosper Profiles
Meet Farzeen Cama
Joyce Godwin Joyce@CedarbrookMedia.Com This week’s spotlight is on Farzeen Cama, a native of Bombay, India who has lived in Prosper for 11 years and finds joy in helping the people around her. Farzeen and husband Xerxes moved from Bombay to Chicago 19 years ago, but the weather there was not agreeable. So, a few years later they moved in search of warmer weather. They tried San Diego but things didn’t work out and it became very expensive there. “So, we decided to move to the Dallas area,” Farzeen said. “We bought a house over the Internet. Once we were here, we decided to go ahead and upgrade our house and go to Prosper.” When the Camas moved to Prosper there wasn’t much here, she said. The small-town life was different from anything she had been used to. “We came and thought ‘Where have we come.’ There were cows on the road.” Now Farzeen says she loves the small town feel of Prosper “where you pretty much know people. It’s a safe place where we can be comfortable in the safety.” It didn’t take long after moving to Prosper for Farzeen to begin volunteering. She got involved with the CERT program through the Prosper Fire Department. CERT stands for Community Emergency Resorbs Team and participating in this program takes time and dedication. Farzeen took all the training and continues to be a member of the Prosper team. She has learned to cook since living in the U.S. because, while in Bombay, she never cooked. She said the take out was so inexpensive there just wasn’t the need for her to learn to cook. But her interests changed after starting her family and her children will be the first to report that Farzeen is a wonderful cook. She even did catering for a while. She said she wanted to stay home with her children while they were young so she did things from home like catering. “I didn’t want my kids to go to day care,” she said. While in Bombay, she worked at the Oberoi Hotel, an eight-star facility, in guest relations. “I got to meet very high-profile people like Michael Jackson. Farzeen considers herself a food lover so when she decided to go to work full time again, she found a position with Costco that allows her to be at home with the children get home but that also means she starts each day around 3:30 a.m. But for this true people person whose priority in life is to help other people, the Costco Food Court is a perfect fit for now. Tish Cama, Farzeen’s daughter, just graduated from Prosper High School and says she has gone to work with her mom and is amazed at the amount of people who come to the food counter just to see Farzeen. Tish will leave in a matter of weeks for University of Arkansas where she has a full scholarship waiting for her major in communication. Tish’s older brother Stivant is at school in Colorado but there are still two girls at home, ages 14 and 12, so Farzeen will be keeping her current schedule for a while longer. See PROFILE, page 3
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Dick’s - Field and Stream First to Open in Gates of Prosper Joyce Godwin Joyce@CedarbrookMedia.Com It has finally happened. The long-awaited retail stores for Gates of Prosper are beginning to open. Dick’s Sporting Goods and Field and Stream are the first to open at the corner of U.S. Highway 380 and State Highway 289 in Prosper known as the Gates of Prosper. Construction has been ongoing for more than a year. It’s actually one store, said store manager Robert Gribbon as the doors opened to the public for the first time Tuesday morning. “It looks like two stores from the outside, but we own Field and Stream and it’s all one store inside,” Gribbon said. “On the Dick’s side is mostly sports equipment and clothing while the Field and Stream side is hunting and fishing equipment and accessories.” When the store is fully staffed, Gribbon estimates the number of jobs will be approximately 125. Prosper’s Chamber of Commerce ambassadors had a large group on hand to provide a ribbon-cutting ceremony officially welcoming the new business to Prosper. Tuesday’s event was what is termed a soft opening. Although the store is open for business now, the grand opening will be Friday. Gribbon said there will be all kinds of fun activities and giveaways at the store throughout the weekend that customers won’t want to miss. “This is tremendous,” said Prosper’s Mayor Ray Smith. “Looking around this store, it’s obvious it was built and put together with excellence and that is what we love in Prosper.”
Cornerstone serves 250 students for back-to-school Joyce Godwin Joyce@ CedarbrookMedia.com
Courtesy Photo
Backpacks are lined up on the lawn at the pavilion at Frontier Park for Cornerstone’s “Back-to-School” festival Saturday.
Courtesy Photo
A volunteer from Gateway Church offers cookies to a group of children as they wait their turns in the line for face painting at the Cornerstone Backto-School festival Saturday at Frontier Park.
Joyce Godwin | PROSPER TIMES
Jen Sewell paints the face of Isabella Jimenez, 6, during the Cornerstone festival at Frontier Park Saturday.
The pavilion at Prosper’s Frontier Park came alive last Saturday morning as more than 40 volunteers assisted the families of Cornerstone Assistance Network of North Central Texas with a fun carnival combined with back-to-school shopping. There was elaborate face and body painting, cotton candy, rock climbing and rolling around inside huge inflated balls. There was also food on hand provided by Texas Roadhouse of Prosper, soon to be open in Gates of Prosper on U.S. Highway 380 and State Highway 289. But the biggest thing that happened that morning was that 250 youngsters left with new backpacks, shoes, school supplies, spirit wear and three outfits for back to school. Courtney Chamblee, Director of Programming for Cornerstone, said this year they are able to work with 250 children, an increase of 100 from last year’s event. Cornerstone employees started organizing the event in May to be able to achieve the detailed coordination for students. Chamblee said they work with a list of students on the school district’s free and reduced lunch program and include any of the families Cornerstone has worked with through the last year and those are the children served in the backto-school festival. But attention to detail doesn’t stop there. When the kids came to the pavilion Saturday morning, they received shoes that had been purchase specifically for them in colors of preference when possible. Their backpacks and other clothes were already selected and matched to each child. Chamblee said that during the preparation time, parents have filled out the necessary paperwork providing the correct information for each child including their favorite colors, likes and dislikes. This enables volunteers to match items for each child. Chris and Gina Kern were in the volunteer force Saturday along with their three children Elizabeth, 16,
Ethan, 13, and Caroline, 10. They said they were serving as runners which means, after the family checks in, the Kerns gathered the backpacks, shoes and school supplies that were already prepared for the children in that family. Gina Kern said she encourages everyone to volunteer with the Cornerstone events. She said she loves to see the children’s faces light up when they see the things given to them. “It makes this day really fun,” she said. The Cornerstone group shared the following note on its Facebook page after Saturday’s festival: “I would first like to say thank you for the blessings that Cornerstone has bestowed upon my family. The assistance with weekly lunch food was so tremendously helpful and my boys really enjoyed “shopping” each Tuesday night. Additionally, for them to be able to “shop” for some school clothes this past Tuesday was amazing. They had so much fun picking out what they liked and then showing it to me and their mom. Their smiles will forever be in our memories. Lastly, we picked up their school supplies at the carnival today at Frontier Park and all I can say is WOW! From the moment we walked up and received such a warm greeting to the backpacks, shoes, spirit wear, food and games I was humbled. Please let all of those that volunteered know that their efforts were not unnoticed and were appreciated more than I can express.” A note from the Cornerstone staff said, “We love to receive little notes like this. We are so grateful to be able to serve our neighbors! Thank you to every donor and volunteer that has partnered with Cornerstone. You allow us to continue doing what we do.” For individuals who want to be involved and help with the Cornerstone mission, please contact Cornerstone at 972-689-9115 or visit the website at www.cornerstonenct. org for more information. “Cornerstone is always ready to take donations,” Chamblee said. “We will be starting on the Christmas event soon and there will be plenty of opportunities to get involved.”
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