Community News
Bible-inspired lessons in Texas public schools? State education board to hold hearings this month
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By Megan Cardona Published September 3, 2024 at 5:00 AM CDT The State Board of Education will hold public hearings this month over a proposed curriculum for Texas public schools that includes Christian-based religious references in K-5 education. The proposal faced some criticism from the public since it was unveiled by the Texas Education Agency in May. The…
Investigation finds falsified Dallas County juvenile detention records
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By Marina Trahan Martinez Published September 10, 2024 at 5:00 AM CDT A state investigation released Monday found that minors in Dallas County’s juvenile detention center were isolated for 24 hours a day, sometimes for several days. In 2023, the Office of Inspector General investigated allegations reported to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department of cruelty,…
UNT is fine with voter registration on campus, but new directive says keep it outside of class
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By Lucinda Breeding-Gonzales | Denton Record-Chronicle Published September 5, 2024 at 9:58 AM CDT University of North Texas administrators told deans recently that faculty can no longer use class time for voter registration. One of those deans also told faculty that they would have to rebuff requests from groups seeking to use classes to register…
UT System prohibits its universities from making political or social statements
By Volunteer Editor |
The new policy says universities should remain neutral on “issues of the day” while allowing students, faculty and staff to express their ideas. By Kate McGee Aug. 23, 20245 PM Central The University of Texas Board of Regents amended its free speech policy this week to prohibit the system and its 14 universities and health-related institutions…
Texas has removed a million people from the voter rolls. Why are we finding out now?
By Volunteer Editor |
KUT 90.5 | By Blaise Gainey Published August 30, 2024 at 12:20 PM CDT It might be hard to believe, but Election Day is now just over nine weeks away. As Nov. 5 rapidly approaches, top Texas officials have been making big moves toward what they say will create a safer and more secure election. But their…
Dallas ISD’s first day of school begins with fewer funds, more security
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By Bill Zeeble, Justin Martin Published August 12, 2024 at 4:44 PM CDT Rousing trumpets and drums played by visiting Hillcrest High school band members welcomed Pershing Elementary students and parents Monday as Dallas ISD’s new school year began. Returning 2nd grader Ubaldo Cruz was ready for school because he liked his first year. “The teacher…
Fort Worth nonprofit expands uninsured health services to new ZIP code
By Volunteer Editor |
The Mercy Clinic nonprofit offers services to a third ZIP code, 76115 By Alicia Barrera • Published August 5, 2024 • Updated on August 6, 2024 at 10:14 am To watch video report, Click Here. Free healthcare is being expanded in South Fort Worth to address the health disparity for the uninsured. The faith-based nonprofit “Mercy Clinic” is working to help those in…
South Dallas summer camp tackles food gap with free meals
By Volunteer Editor |
KERA | By Zara Amaechi Published August 1, 2024 at 5:00 AM CDT For many North Texas families, summer break means a few months of fun and freedom. For others, the season is a battle with food insecurity. When schools close for the summer, the meals many students rely on throughout the year end, leaving families in search of…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
Maiden Foundation
A RELENTLESS COMPASSION FOR THE WELL-BEING OF PEOPLE WOULD ACCURATELY DEFINE THE MAIDEN FAMILY.
The Maiden Foundation upholds the intrinsic dignity of every individual. However, on a global scale, a significant number of people are marginalized from the political, economic, and social institutions that influence their lives. We direct our investments to areas with the greatest need, with a primary focus on North Texas. Nevertheless, our commitment extends beyond geographical boundaries, as we are driven by opportunities to make a meaningful and impactful difference.
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.
The Bridge Homeless Recovery Center
THE MISSION OF THE BRIDGE IS TO EMPOWER ADULTS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS IN DALLAS WITH THE TOOLS TO HOMELESS RECOVERY AS THEY MOVE INTO SUSTAINABLE HOUSING.
Our purpose is to provide every homeless man and woman with the tools necessary to recover and become self-sufficient.
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!
