Community News
Delays in Federal Financial Aid Form Leaves Students in Limbo During College Acceptance Season
By Volunteer Editor |
The new system was intended to increase aid to students in need. This year, it’s caused a lot of problems. By Sarah Asch March 28, 2024 2:01 pm It’s March, which means millions of college-bound hopefuls are finding out admissions decisions that will impact the next four years of their lives. But this year, there’s a hiccup….
Pro-Palestinian Student Groups in Texas Say Governor’s Free Speech Order Targets Them
By Volunteer Editor |
By Zara Amaechi Published April 1, 2024 at 5:00 AM CDT Pro-Palestinian student groups at universities across Texas are calling on school administrators to reject an executive order issued by Gov. Greg Abbot last week that could penalize their on-campus activity. The order issued Wednesday requires all public colleges and universities to review their free speech policies and establish punishments —…
How to Get Birth Control and Emergency Contraception in Texas
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By María Méndez | The Texas Tribune Published March 14, 2024 at 5:03 PM CDT Editor’s note: This story has been updated throughout to reflect changes in policies and access. Most abortions are illegal in Texas, but adults in Texas still have access to a range of birth control and reproductive health care services through…
North Texans Speak Out For Northwest, Lewisville ISD Teachers Targeted Online
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By Bill Zeeble Published March 20, 2024 at 5:00 AM CDT At Northwest ISD’s board meeting Monday night — the first since fake bomb threats targeted a middle school teacher’s home and her campus last week — parents not only defended the teacher harassed and victimized, but praised the district for defending her. “Party politics, personal…
What a New Funding Model Means for Community Colleges in Texas
By Volunteer Editor |
House Bill 8 awards funding based on student outcomes rather than school enrollment. By Alexandra Hart & Rhonda Fanning March 21, 2024 2:55 pm Last year, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law House Bill 8, a $683 million investment in community colleges. The measure changes the funding formula for two-year colleges, awarding money based on student outcomes rather…
DPS Announces Results from Human Trafficking Operations
By Volunteer Editor |
March 4, 2024 AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) announces the results of several human trafficking mitigation and rescue operations conducted during January 2024, which is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month. During that month alone, Special Agents from DPS’ Criminal Investigations Division (CID), along with local and federal partners, conducted 12 operations focused on human…
Medicaid Patients Now Have 12 months of Postpartum Coverage in Texas
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By Elena Rivera Published March 1, 2024 at 5:00 AM CST Starting today, Medicaid patients in Texas have 12 months of postpartum coverage. Texas lawmakers passed a postpartum extension, bringing coverage from two months to twelve months, at the end of the last legislative session. The state submitted the extension to the U.S. Centers for…
Disabled Veteran Asks for Speedier Investigation into Dallas Police Caught on Camera Mocking Him
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By Toluwani Osibamowo Published March 6, 2024 at 2:03 PM CST Updated March 6, 2024 at 2:10 PM CST Dallas resident and veteran Dynell Lane wants Dallas City Council members to help speed up the investigation into the police officers caught on camera mocking him at a pizzeria last June. Lane told the city’s Community Police Oversight…
Upcoming Events
Local Organizations
The Afiya Center
The Afiya Center (TAC) was established in response to the increasing disparities between HIV incidences worldwide and the extraordinary prevalence of HIV among Black womxn and girls in Texas. TAC is unique in that it is the only Reproductive Justice (RJ) organization in North Texas founded and directed by Black womxn. At TAC we are transforming the lives, health, and overall wellbeing of Black womxn and girls by providing refuge, education, and resources; we act to ignite the communal voices of Black womxn resulting in our full achievement of reproductive freedom.
National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition
The National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition is the only social justice organization led by black trans people to collectively address the inequities faced in the black transgender human experience. Through our national advocacy center and affiliate state chapters we work daily, advocating to end poverty, discrimination in all forms and its human inequities faced in health, employment, housing and education that are rooted in systemic racism, to improve the lived experience of transgender people. Our work is based in peace building, community education, public policy initiatives, empowerment programs and direct services.
Black Youth Project 100
BYP100 is National, member-based organization of Black 18-35 year old activists and organizers, dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. We do this through building a network focused on transformative leadership development, direct action organizing, advocacy, and political education using a Black queer feminist lens. BYP100 envisions a world where all Black people have economic, social, political, and educational freedom.
Behind Every Door
We partner with the community to create and run intentional programming from our centers. We work with all ages, from bingo events for seniors to sports programs and leagues to out-of-school programs for school-age children. Our biggest focus is on children and youth with programming taking place on weekdays after school. Our Five E Framework allows us to respect the uniqueness of each community and collaborate across five main pillars: Engagement, Exploration, Education, Expression, Encounter.
National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
We work to end police misconduct, prison profiteering, racist & political repression, and economic injustice. Our strategy is not to merely be reactive to incidents of state sanctioned violence and repression, but to build towards meaningful change in the power dynamic between our neighborhoods and the police.
We are the Dallas chapter of the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression.
Faith In Texas
Faith in Texas is a nonpartisan, multi-racial, multi-faith grassroots movement of people united in values working together to achieve economic, racial, and social justice for all people. We are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Universalist, and believers in humanity. We are people of diverse races, faiths, socioeconomic backgrounds, and professions. We are your family, friends, neighbors, and community. Faith in Texas envisions a world in which economic, racial, and social equity enable everyone to live in complete liberation to pursue their divine purpose and participate fully in the systems and processes that govern their lives.
Unity Unlimited
Unity Unlimited, Inc. is a non-profit organization whose main mission is providing educational activities and resources to people, young and old, to foster unity and harmony within the community, the city, the state, the nation and the world regardless of race, culture or denomination. Unity Unlimited, Inc. is focused on helping people, overcome racial and cultural division so that they are able to live productive lives in harmony with their fellow man. We are a grass-roots organization in touch with the very real issues that face our society, desiring mostly to educate on ways to handle life’s situations in a positive manner. With hate crimes on the increase in America and violence against people on the rise, it is our desire to help educate society about diversity, unity and tolerance to help develop knowledgeable and caring citizens.
House of Rebirth
House of Rebirth is a network of communities, families, and friends, bridging barriers to access alongside Black transgender women and femmes. We work to build the safety and self-determination of Black trans communities through advocacy, housing, resource navigation, and intercommunal programs. We accomplish this work through a coalition of allies, advocates, organizations, donors, and community members who extend time, expertise, and access. We welcome opportunities to strengthen these networks of support.
Mothers Against Police Brutality
Mothers Against Police Brutality is the voice for justice for victims of police brutality, excessive force and unjust murders by law enforcement. We are multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalition uniting mothers nationwide to fight for civil rights, police accountability and policy reform. MAPB formed to unite mothers who have lost their children to police violence. Every year families lose children and other loved ones to police killings. An alarmingly disproportionate number of African American and Hispanic men killed by policemen are unarmed. In virtually every case, officers that kill unarmed Black and Brown men are never charged with a crime.
Next Generation Action Network
Mission: To lobby for social change and equality for all regardless of race, religion, nationality, gender, sex, or age.
Vision: To cultivate young leaders driven towards the eradication of social injustice through social, educational, civil, human, and community reform.
North Texas Dream Team
The North Texas Dream Team is a grassroots community organization serving our undocumented community of North Texas. While the North Texas Dream Team began as a student-led movement, we have intentionally grown over the last decade into a multigenerational and multicultural movement. Our current membership consists of students, teachers, professors, labor workers, young professionals, parents, and community members interested in creating change in our community.
Texas Organizing Project
The Texas Organizing Project (TOP), founded in 2009, organizes Black and Latino communities in Dallas, Harris and Bexar counties with the goal of transforming Texas into a state where working people of color have the power and representation they deserve. Our greatest strength is the more than 285,000 members and supporters who help lead our direct-action organizing, grassroots lobbying, and electoral organizing. In addition, we provide training to develop everyday leaders in our Black and Latino neighborhoods; people hungry for positive change who want to be champions for their communities.
Human Rights Initiative
HRI provides free legal and social services to people who have suffered human rights abuses, including;
Asylum seekers fleeing persecution based on religion, race, ethnicity, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group
Those protected under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the Victims of Trafficking and the Violence Protection Act
Immigrants abused by a U.S. Citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident (Green Card holder) spouse
Immigrant children who are victims of violent crimes, neglect, abuse, or abandonment
Inclusive Communities Project
The Inclusive Communities Project (ICP) is a nonprofit organization that works to expand fair and affordable housing opportunities for low-income families and redress policies and practices that perpetuate the harmful effects of discrimination and segregation. Since 2005, ICP has helped low-income families achieve economic success by addressing the barriers to affordable housing in high opportunity areas that offer a clear path to good schools, safe neighborhoods, gainful employment, and healthy living environments. ICP provides direct services to families with Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers and supports this effort through housing initiatives that expand housing and advocacy activities that promote and support the Fair Housing Act.
The Women's Center
In 1979, The Women’s Center was established to address significant problems of violence, crisis, and poverty experienced by women and families in Tarrant County. The founders of The Center created a place of transformation that has served hundreds of thousands of women, men, and children over the past 40 years. People come to The Women’s Center from very hard places. But here, we know that every person has value and the capacity to change their life. And so, our work is not about tragedy. Rather it is about hope, growth, and recovery. It is our privilege to still be a place where people come to find jobs, resolve crises that threaten their mental health, and heal from the trauma of sexual assault, child sexual abuse, and other violent crime. We are proud of the work and will continue to live the words of The Women’s Center founder, Karen Perkins, “save a woman, save a family, save the world…over and over, of course!”
Child Protection Connection
The Child Protection Connection® (The Connection) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit umbrella organization that includes both a Texas program, Texas Lawyers for Children ("TLC"), and national expansion work in other states. As advocates in our courts, community, and legislature, TLC works to ensure that all children in foster care have access to trauma-informed care and services. Nationally, The Connection is replicating the ground-breaking Online Legal Resource and Communication Center and Advocacy Program (Online Center) it originally created for Texas. The Online Center connects, equips, and mobilizes judges, attorneys, and other professionals involved in a child's court case to protect children from being harmed by the systems meant to keep them safe. The Connection's Online Center has operated in five states with the potential to reach and help protect the legal rights of one-third of our nation's children.
Texas Campaign for the Environment
Empowering Texans to fight pollution through sustained grassroots organizing campaigns that shift corporate and governmental policy. We envision a Texas free from pollution. As the largest environmental group in Texas organizing support through door-to-door canvassing, grassroots is both who we are and what we do. Our small but mighty group of activists routinely pounds the pavement, rain or shine, year-round, to knock on doors and make contact with folks about public health and environmental issues. Now our person-to-person conversations on the phone are another way we can have a big impact together with people like you. Every year our three offices reach out to close to a half-million doors, gaining tens of thousands of contributing members to win our campaigns! We have created a presence in all 181 legislative districts in Texas.
Trust for Public Land
The outdoors are essential to our happiness, health, and well-being.
Quality parks and green spaces are fundamental for sustaining equitable, resilient communities. Access to nature and the outdoors—close to home, in the cities and communities where people live—is a matter of health, equity, and justice. That’s why we work alongside communities across the country to create, protect, and steward the nature-rich places that are vital to human well-being.
We’re driven by four commitments: equity, health, climate, and community.
Trinity Park Conservancy
The Trinity River is your river, and the Trinity Park Conservancy is your advocate – helping build new connections between the people of Dallas and the Trinity, our most valuable, untapped natural resource. As a nonprofit, we have a unique role to play. By engaging the community in the process, we create an inclusive vision of spaces along the river that benefit the surrounding neighborhoods while protecting the environment and providing a welcoming gathering space for all Dallas citizens.
EarthX
EarthX was founded in 2011 as an Earth Day celebration in Dallas, TX. Since then it has grown into an international nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to educating and inspiring people and organizations to take action towards a more sustainable future worldwide. Our mission is to inspire and energize the global community in ways that help create a sustainable world for all living things, and a better, cleaner, healthier world for future generations.
Texas Trees Foundation
The Texas Trees Foundation (Texas Trees) serves as a catalyst in creating a new green legacy for North Texas through transformational, research-based plans that educate and mobilize the public to activate the social, economic, environmental, and health benefits that trees and urban forestry provide for a better quality of life. The Mission of the Texas Trees Foundation is (i) to preserve, beautify and expand parks and other public natural green spaces, and (ii) to beautify our public streets, boulevards and rights-of-way by planting trees and encouraging others to do the same through educational programs that focus on the importance of building and protecting the “urban forest” today as a legacy for generations to come.
Viola's House Dallas
Viola’s House mission is to provide maternity housing and support services to mothers who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy.
Formed in 2008 as a “Maternity Home” to provide temporary housing and support services to expectant teenage mothers aged 18-24 in the Dallas area. Viola’s House utilizes an impactful approach to help teen expectant mothers make enduring, positive changes in their lives. The Program provides the basic life necessities of housing, food, and clothing, in addition to life skills, education, and training in financial literacy, parenting, and counseling. Viola’s House takes a preventative approach and provides a comprehensive second chance prevention program.
Arlington Charities
Arlington Charities' mission is to lead and engage our community in the fight against hunger and poverty: providing help; creating hope. Arlington Charities provides eligible individuals and families with nutritious, supplemental groceries. We also provide FREE educational classes for adults led by highly qualified and trained professionals. These classes will help you attain economic stability and freedom.
American Diabetes Association
The moving force behind the work of the American Diabetes Association® is a network of more than 565,000 volunteers, their families and caregivers, a professional society of nearly 12,000 health care professionals, as well as nearly 350 staff members.
Mission
To prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes.
Vision
Life free of diabetes and all its burdens
Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation
Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation’s mission is to support Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) to ensure that all Texans, today and in the future, can enjoy the wild things and wild places of Texas. Since 1991, Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation has raised private funds to advance Texas’ proud outdoor traditions and conserve our state’s wildlife, habitat and natural resources. Our vision is for all Texans to have access to the wild things and wild places in our state, both now and for generations to come.
Juliette Fowler Communities
It takes time to create a place as special as Juliette Fowler Communities—more than 130 years in fact. We grew up in East Dallas as a community people of all ages could call home. Today, we’re still an intergenerational family serving children, youth and seniors.
There are lots big, expensive senior living communities in Dallas. Many are for-profit operations that have been bought and sold multiple times. We’re something else entirely—intimate, cozy, comfortable—and you’ll feel the difference immediately.
At Juliette Fowler, you’ll find new things to discover, new friends to cherish, new ways to learn, grow, share, inspire and make a difference. We’re here to enrich lives—not to make money for shareholders.
Buckner International
Buckner International is a ministry dedicated to the transformation and restoration of the lives we serve. We are a Christ-centered organization that delivers redemptive ministry to the most vulnerable from the beginning to the ending of life.
Our mission
To follow the example of Jesus by serving vulnerable children, families and seniors.
Our vision
To set the standard of excellence in serving vulnerable children, families and seniors.
Local Hero Spotlight
Dr. Opal Lee, known as the "Grandmother of Juneteenth," was a victim of racist violence as a child when a mob burned down her family's home. Ms. Opal has turned that trauma into a legacy of hope and compassion as a dedicated public school teacher, a prolific activist, and a beloved community organizer.
Recommend A Local Hero
Dallas in Action!
