Empowered by his Christian calling, Baylor student creates program to assist military veterans

Carr P. Collins Scholar Raj Landry has a clear picture of what he wants to do with his life. He’s had it since he was 15 years old and fresh off a mission trip with his hometown church, St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Flower Mound, Texas.

“It made me think, ‘How could we make this have a bigger impact of a longer, more sustainable nature?’” said Landry, a junior social entrepreneurship and finance major, who is also double minoring in poverty studies and social justice. “I felt a calling to go explore this more through entrepreneurship. At the time, I didn’t really understand the role of business in helping people, but God really opened my eyes and pointed me in a clear direction.”

Landry has been pursuing that direction ever since. At Baylor, he isn’t waiting until he graduates to put what he is learning to use. He spearheaded efforts to create a lending library for the Baylor VETS program during his sophomore year. It was an idea that came to him, he said, in April 2017 when he visited his friend at another college and saw their lending program.

When Landry realized it was a need at Baylor, he stepped forward to fill it. With the encouragement of Veterans of Baylor Director Kevin Davis (BA ’12), Landry formed a student support organization called Baylor Shield. He then solicited textbook donations and began holding fundraising events.

With a successful textbook drive last spring, the library now contains hundreds of textbooks and is located near the VETS lounge in the Sid Richardson Building. Landry estimates they were able to save 11 student veterans just over $2,000 in textbook costs during their first semester and hopes to help even more veterans this fall.

Although he has no connections to the military, Landry said he is grateful to be able to serve veterans. “I saw there was a group of people, our student veterans, who deserved help,” Landry said. “Getting to know our veterans through this process has made me admire them and respect them that much more. I just said, ‘Here’s a problem that someone needs to solve. I have the skills and I have the time to do this, so why not me?’”

Landry said he hopes during his next two years at Baylor to dig deeper into his classes at the Hankamer School of Business and grow the VETS library to be sustainable beyond his time at the University. He said part of his motivation to serve stems from the gratitude he feels for the scholarships that allowed him to be part of the Baylor Family.

For Landry, scholarships were a necessity. At 15, he knew he wanted to come to Baylor — a decision that was cemented during his senior year of high school when he attended Distinguished Scholars Day. With his mind made up, he told his parents, Brett and Sanjana — both Mississippi State University alumni — that he wanted to go to Baylor.

“Their response was, ‘Alright, go get some scholarships’,” Landry said with a laugh. During his time at Baylor, Landry said that they have become proud Baylor parents, supporting the University and cheering on Baylor at sporting events. Brett, dean of the Gupta School of Business at the University of Dallas, and Sanjana, who works in cyber security for HP, are even encouraging Raj’s younger sister to consider attending Baylor, based on the positive experience he has had here.

“I never would have imagined that I would have had such support from faculty and such resources from other students and just such an incredible encouraging community to help me do what I love to do,” Landry said. “It’s just been so incredible, and I’ve loved every second of it.”