On the morning of Jan. 30, students, staff and members of the Texarkana ISD community gathered in the foyer of the Sullivan Performing Arts Center to celebrate the achievement of freshman Nirav Neupane. 

For a significant period of time, Neupane dedicated extensive efforts toward the development of a new app deeply focused on enabling community members to easily find and organize community service events.

“Serve Smart is an app helping to come up with creative action for volunteering,” Neupane said. “The app is ideally making a difference in the community, specifically schools and student organizations.” 

As community members took time to reflect on the well-crafted app, many found themselves in admiration of the direction Neupane took with the creation of his app.

“As I began to review the development of this app, [I quickly noticed that] it is to serve,” Congressman Nathaniel Moran said. “It was intriguing to me, and telling to me that he [wanted to help] his community.”

Not only did Neupane receive recognition through a variety of rewards from sponsors, but his peers also attended to celebrate the achievement of their friend and classmate.

“It makes me really happy to see that people at this school are doing stuff that makes a difference in the community,” sophomore Jillian Tyler said. “It makes me feel proud of the school I go to.”

The celebration of his achievement serves as a small stepping stone towards his future success. Neupane’s app has implications far beyond Texas High, with potential to benefit students and communities for years to come. 

“[This achievement] highlights the fact that we have a lot of exceptional students at Texas High School,” principal Ben Renner said. “I love it when one of our kids gets that recognition because all of us get that recognition, as Texas High School is the [best] high school in East Texas.”