The Pre-GED School and Arlette Hinojosa, a senior at The University of Texas at Dallas, were honored during a dinner marking the conclusion of the ExxonMobil Community Summer Jobs Program in Dallas. Along with the awards for Agency of the Year and Intern of the Year, both winners received a check for $1,000 honoring their accomplishments. The reception concluded the program’s 20^th year in Dallas. During that time, ExxonMobil Foundation has contributed more than $3.5 million locally to fund approximately 1,475 internships through the Community Summer Jobs Program.

“We are proud to support a program that introduces students to the life-changing work nonprofits undertake in our community. These students have been equipped with knowledge, experience and skills that will carry them forward as they pursue their careers,” said Suzanne McCarron, president of ExxonMobil Foundation. “We congratulate Pre-GED School and Arlette on their outstanding contributions to the program and our community this summer.”

Founded in 2002, the Pre-GED School serves the East Dallas community, providing instruction and free child care to adults struggling with literacy. The selection of Pre-GED School as Agency of the Year was based upon a rigorous review of all agencies by a panel of judges. The panel concluded that the Pre-GED School’s internship offered a rare hands-on opportunity for accounting students, allowing them to create and update working budgets for the current fiscal year, while encouraging further career exploration within the nonprofit sector.

Arlette Hinojosa, intern at the American Foundation for the Blind – Center on Vision Loss, was selected as Intern of the Year based on her professionalism and passion for working with individuals living with vision loss. Hinojosa reorganized, updated and wrote copy for the assistive product database for the organization’s website, which is visited by more than 20 million Americans annually. Hinojosa will use the $1,000 scholarship for education expenses in the fall.

Prior to her internship, Hinojosa planned to attend law school following graduation and hoped to become a district attorney. Over the course of her internship, however, Hinojosa began to adjust her career path as she discovered a passion for helping individuals with special needs. Hinojosa now plans to focus her studies on disability law when she enters law school in the fall of 2011.

The Community Summer Jobs Program in Dallas is administered by the Volunteer Center of North Texas, which manages the internships and trains agencies to better recruit, interview and select candidates. Each nonprofit is responsible for interviewing and hiring its own interns, which helps ensure that the unique needs of each agency are best met.

“Each year, the interns participating in the Community Summer Jobs Program produce outstanding work that leaves a lasting impact on our selected nonprofits and their clients. In turn, students get a rare opportunity to gain hands-on experience in their field while giving back to the community,” said John Withers, board chair, Volunteer Center of North Texas. “This continued partnership between nonprofits and the leaders of tomorrow is vital to serving and improving our community.”

Since the program began in 1971 in New York City, ExxonMobil has provided more than $16.3 million to support 4,400 community summer job internships. Today it is active in 12 states, including Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming.

About ExxonMobil Foundation

ExxonMobil Foundation is the primary philanthropic arm of the Exxon Mobil Corporation in the United States. The Foundation and the Corporation engage in a range of philanthropic activities that advance education, health and science in the communities where ExxonMobil has significant operations. In the United States, ExxonMobil supports initiatives to improve math and science education at the K-12 and higher education levels.

Globally, ExxonMobil provides funding to improve basic education, promote women as catalysts for economic development, and combat malaria and other infectious diseases in developing countries. In 2009, together with its employees and retirees, Exxon Mobil Corporation, its divisions and affiliates, and ExxonMobil Foundation provided $235 million in contributions worldwide, of which more than $98 million was dedicated to education. Additional information on ExxonMobil’s community partnerships and contributions programs is available at www.exxonmobil.com/community.