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Excellence lives at Dallas ISD, where students are prepared to lead in college, careers, and their communities. With strong academics, career pathways, and college credit opportunities, Dallas ISD is shaping the next generation of leaders.
Excellence lives at Dallas ISD, where students are prepared to lead in college, careers, and their communities. With strong academics, career pathways, and college credit opportunities, Dallas ISD is shaping the next generation of leaders.
Excellence lives at Dallas ISD, where students are prepared to lead in college, careers, and their communities. With strong academics, career pathways, and college credit opportunities, Dallas ISD is shaping the next generation of leaders.
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A homegrown leader
Far East Dallas Public Improvement District manager is of & for the neighborhood
Story by MADELYN EDWARDS
by GABRIEL CANO
Last year, Dallas City Council approved the creation of the Far East Dallas Public Improvement District (FED PID).
And who better to lead it than a Dallas native who has lived in the neighborhood for almost three decades?
Dolores Sosa Green, who grew up in the Knox-Henderson area, became the Far East Dallas Public Improvement District manager in March. She has spent over 30 years working with community-based organizations, particularly ones to help women and children in need. This includes Big Brothers Big Sisters and Trinity River Mission in West Dallas.
Green has a psychology degree from Texas A&M University and a counseling degree from the University of North Texas, the latter of which she earned while working at Big Brothers Big Sisters. YOU’VE LIVED IN FAR EAST DALLAS FOR 28 YEARS. HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
When my husband and I got married and we had a baby, we decided that we needed to move out of our apartment, and then we moved in with my in-laws and started saving for a house and searching for a house, and we had a realtor who
said, “You need to come check out the houses over here off of Ferguson Road. At some point, it’ll become a really good neighborhood.” And so, we found a house, loved it, loved it because it had wood floors. It was affordable. And then we had our second child, and we raised two daughters in that home, and we’ve been there ever since. So we probably will die in that house, too.
HOW DID YOU COME ACROSS YOUR CURRENT ROLE, AND WHY DID YOU WANT IT?
I was just kind of taking a break, and then when I decided to look for jobs, I saw the PID manager role, and I was like, “Oh, gosh, that’s working with Ferguson Road Initiative (FRI) Executive Director Vikki Martin.” I’m reading it, I’m like, “Oh, I would love to do that because it would be in my community.” And Vikki and I have known each other for a long time. I used to be a board member on the FRI board, and she’s always wanted me to come work with her. I’ve just never been able to because I had other jobs, or there’s family health issues. I decided to volunteer at one of the town hall meetings, and then I was hoping that Vikki would bring it up to me at that point, but since she didn’t, I figured she had the role filled. And then she sends me a text, “Hey, the person backed out, would you take this job?” I’m like, “Absolutely, I would do the job.” And she goes, “You’re not just going to tell me and then leave two weeks later?” I said, “No, I am certain I want this job.”
TELL US ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE OF EARNING YOUR MASTER’S DEGREE.
My boss kept pushing me. “Dolores, you really need to go get your master’s. I think you’d be great.” And plus, Big Brothers Big Sisters also had money set aside for employees who wanted to pursue their degrees, so I took advantage of that. They paid for my master’s degree. So I went ahead and did it. I didn’t want to go back to school because I didn’t know if I could do it. I already had a young child, but after a lot of nudging from my boss, and then another boss. I applied and got my degree and went to school. That’s before online anything. I was driving to Denton at least two or three times a week to class and was there for three-hour classes and would get home by 11 o’clock. And then by the time I walked the stage to get my master’s, I was expecting my second child.
THAT MUST HAVE BEEN HARD HAVING TO MAKE THAT COMMUTE TO DENTON FROM DALLAS.
It wasn’t too bad. It actually made my husband learn how to cook a little bit, even though he almost burned the house one time, according to my 3-year-old daughter at the time. He was trying to fry some chicken tenders and maybe some green beans, the saltiest green beans I’ve ever had, the hardest burnt up chicken tenders. I ate it, and I was so grateful.
HOW HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE INFORMED YOUR JOB NOW?
Anytime you’re working in a nonprofit and working with communities or constituents, relationship building is very key. So as the FED PID manager, I’m going to have to really build
Photography
the trust and the relationship with the property owners that are within the PID in order for it to work and really try to meet their needs. Because when their needs are met (within our control because there are a lot of things that are out of our control), they will thrive in their businesses.
WHAT DOES YOUR ROLE WITHIN THE PID LOOK LIKE?
The top priority is public safety, so I am looking to hire an extended neighborhood patrol coordinator who will schedule patrolling within the PID because, as we all know, police presence helps to bring down crime. But also making sure that police officers and the property owners get to know one another, work together. That’s really the ultimate goal I have for the PID, so that’s in the future, getting those patrols scheduled, having them work after hours and really hitting the high-activity areas, like Buckner Boulevard-Peavy Road, John West Road. And then down the road, really working on some capital improvements, beautification efforts, bringing in art. I talked to a gentleman recently. He goes, “I would love to be able to help with that, bring some artists who can do murals on certain property buildings if they’re allowed.” I would love to see something very creative, something beautiful to look at as you come through the neighborhood.
WHAT CAN PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN FAR EAST DALLAS EXPECT FROM THIS PID IN THE FUTURE?
A lot of people are going to want to move here. That’s what I hope for, although there’s pros and cons to that. I do worry about gentrification quite a bit, but that’s my personal fear only because I’ve already been through that with my childhood home. I want people who have been living here to continue to live here and not be forced out. That’s part of my big picture. I don’t know if that’s possible because anytime you bring up an area, you want to attract greatness, but sometimes, it comes at a cost to the people who have lived here for a long time, and I’m not sure how to balance that out.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
There’s Even More at Medallion!
America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses
Applebee’s
BackMenders Chiropractic with Care
Bliss Nail Salon
Chatime (Coming Soon)
CVS
Down
to Play
Ingram’s Donuts
Kohl’s
Mathnasium (Coming Soon)
Mattress Firm
Medallion Barbers
Milan Laser
Planet Fitness
Pet Supplies Plus
RDA Pro-Mart Beauty Supply
Salata
Satya Yoga
Scrubs & Beyond
Skin Experts (Coming Soon)
Smiley Dental
Subway
Summit Salon Studios
Supercuts
Target
The Skin and Body Co.
Unrefined Bakery
Yardstick Dog Hotel
7-11
Northwest Highway Between Skillman & Abrams
CLOSING TIME
What really happened to Bar 3606 and OT Tavern
THE COMMERCIAL STRIP BETWEEN MARTEL AND PENROSE AVENUES ON GREENVILLE APPEARS TO BE CHANGING AGAIN.
Brazamar, which promises “contemporary Mexican fire dining,” is expected to move in at 3606 Greenville Ave. Tacos Richy, the offerings of which should be self-evident, is planned for next door. These restaurants will reportedly open this year, but time will tell when exactly that will be.
Unrelated to food, Degree Wellness was granted a certificate of occupancy earlier this year. The spa that offers cryotherapy and light facials is in between the future taco shop and another vacant space. Further down the line is Jars, which closed last year even though its sign was recently still hanging.
This corner, sitting on the iconic Greenville Avenue, has potential in the future, but currently, its emptiness speaks for itself.
Story by MADELYN EDWARDS
Just a few years ago, the string of businesses there had the opposite problem. On a summer night in 2021, there was once a camel outside of the former Bar 3606.
Unlike the mostly commercial Deep Ellum, the bars and restaurants on Greenville Avenue are surrounded by people’s homes, making it easier for problems at those establishments to affect residential streets. Bar 3606, which opened around 2018, and the next door OT Tavern, opened in the mid-2000s, were at multiple times crime scenes for shootings (including one involving former Dallas Cowboys player Kelvin Joseph), murder, aggravated assault, criminal mischief and sexual assault between 2018 and 2022 as well as parking issues.
“It brought so much violence into the neighborhood,” says Darren Dattalo, who lived in Lower Greenville for 25 years but is now in Oregon. He was vice president of his neighborhood association and part of the crime
watch. “One of the shootouts they had … I think there were 60-something shell casings picked up. There is literally residential property next door to it, and my neighborhood was pretty safe other than that. We have other businesses there. We had plenty of bars and restaurants, and no complaints there. But this was not what that was. This was something different.”
In the early days, OT Tavern was just a run of the mill sports bar, even one that Dattalo patronized for lunch several times. But the space that Bar 3606 occupied had always been inhabited by problematic businesses, he says.
The side-by-side bars fed into each other, with OT Tavern being the “pregame” and quieter spot while Bar 3606 (Dattalo described as a strip club without absolute nudity) was where the party ramped up. And he insists they tended to attract patrons from all over the city as opposed to just Lower Greenville folks like other neighborhood establishments did.
“There were accusations that it was a racial
thing,” Dattalo says. “Had nothing to do with it, nothing to do with it at all. We had a similar problem on the other end of Greenville, 10 years prior to that, with a place called Sofrano’s that was just as bad. But Sofrano’s was a white crowd, and we got it shut down, too.”
Instead, he says the establishments were just out of place within close proximity to the residential neighborhood that also includes churches and Mockingbird Elementary to the north.
And technically, he was correct. The properties the bars occupied were zoned for community retail, and in 1993, the City started requiring alcoholic beverage establishments to obtain a permit in all zoning districts. But the former bar Fish Dance at 3606 Greenville Ave. was established before this new rule from the City came down, according to Board of Adjustment minutes. And thus, the nonconforming use was born and was passed down over the years. After a period of vacancy, the nonconforming status for the purposes of an alcoholic beverage establishment and dance hall were reinstated for both Suites A and B.
The city council tried to make the bars conform to current zoning. That worked for OT Tavern as a settlement was negotiated but not Bar 3606. The Board of Adjustment denied the request against the latter in 2021.
“There is no basis to conclude that continued operation will threaten public health and safety,” said attorneys for the company behind Bar 3606, SNNR Ventures LLC, at the time.
To back that up, SNNR Ventures’ attorneys said the crime records they obtained via open records requests showed that violent crime didn’t occur within the bar, and patrons were not given citations. Moreover, they said Bar 3606 hadn’t been linked with two 2020 shootings, nor had the establishment received a noise citation.
OT Tavern had to comply with a slew of rules, like having stricter hours of operation; placing signs dictating where and where not to park; hosting community meetings; installing security cameras; removing all litter each night; mitigating noise by not running outdoor speakers past sundown and closing doors and windows; and hiring security guards or peace officers and a trained crowd manager to be on site at certain times.
OT Tavern was scheduled to cease operations by Aug. 7, 2023, but the bar closed before that in 2022. Foxtrot replaced
it but didn’t last long. This shuttering might seem like a win for the neighborhood, but Dattalo says this action didn’t really help.
“OT got all the airtime, but it was never about OT,” he says. “It was always about 3606 is the big problem.”
Sure enough, Bar 3606 was eventually closed, too.
In 2022, Dallas threatened to protest the renewal of Bar 3606’s Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission permit if it was applied for. That year, the City also filed a lawsuit against property owners Uptown Ventures LLC and Hillcrest Towers LLC to seek a temporary and permanent injunction that would stop them from maintaining a “common nuisance.”
“WE WANT ALL THE BUSINESSES HERE TO THRIVE, BUT WE JUST WANT THEM TO BE GOOD NEIGHBORS, TOO.”
“The property owners are absentee landlords who have failed to implement or require implementation of any crime prevention measures,” the City’s original petition states. “Despite the persistence of violent crime, the property owners irresponsibly rely on their tenants to implement crime prevention measures to abate the ongoing criminal activity. However, neither of the bars have the necessary measures in place to ensure adequate crowd management, crowd control, disturbance prevention or disturbance response. As a result, violent crime continues.”
SNNR Ventures LLC was added to the lawsuit in the City’s amended petition. This document alleges that the tenants allowed Bar 3606 to be a hub for unabated dangerous and criminal activity and was a nuisance to neighbors.
Both the property owners and SNNR Ventures denied the City’s claims in the court documents, but SNNR agreed to a temporary injunction in summer 2023. The terms were not dissimilar to that of OT Tavern — six licensed security guards
or certified peace officers on site; a strict timeline of when to stop admitting customers, making sales and vacate the establishment; install a camera surveillance system; host crime watch meetings and address concerns; hire a trained crowd manager and promoter; provide valet for customers and monitor criminal activity.
But in the long term, Bar 3606 was required to close on Greenville Avenue by Oct. 31, 2023. To SNNR’s benefit, the City agreed to report to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission that it didn’t oppose SNNR’s liquor license, provided that the tenant leave 3606 Greenville Ave.
The case against the property owners and SNNR Ventures was then dismissed.
Dattalo says the property owner agreed to rezone the property to a planned development, which doesn’t allow businesses to be open after midnight or alcoholic beverage establishments. This was approved by the city council in 2023.
The crime rate improved in the immediate aftermath, Dattalo says.
“After they were closed, that whole area, the crime is the same as it is everywhere else in the neighborhood,” he says. “But there was a while, for a couple of years, if you did a heat map, there would be a big, bright dot right on top of 3606.”
OT Tavern’s closure garnered responses of “good riddance” on Facebook but also some “moving won’t fix the problem” and “just move to the suburbs if you don’t like nightlife.” And there were people who mourned the bar specifically, describing it as a place where memories were made, good wings were eaten and was a signifier of their Dallas experience.
The change at 3606 Greenville Ave. was made possible by a partnership between business leaders, residents and City officials, current Lower Greenville Neighborhood Association President Jean McAulay says. She is happy to see new restaurants move in as long as they are respectful to the neighborhood and willing to accept reasonable feedback.
“It’s fantastic to see places that can have daytime uses, anything that creates locations that area residents can walk to and enjoy,” McAulay says. “It’s fine if they attract people from other areas. We know that we’re a destination, and that’s a good thing. We want all the businesses here to thrive, but we just want them to be good neighbors, too.”
Bar 3606’s former owner declined to comment on the record for this story. Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate also attempted to contact the former owner of OT Tavern and the majority property owner Uptown Ventures LLC but didn’t hear back by press time.
on th ttra
East Dallas preteen lives & breathes kart racing
Story by MADELYN EDWARDS
Photography by GIULIO MORI
Liam Nachawati lives near White Rock Lake, but he spends a lot of time traveling the world, competing in kart races. Not bad for an 11-year-old.
Liam started kart racing as a 6-year-old. His uncle, an engineer who has an interest in cars and watches Formula 1 racing, let Liam use his racing simulator, similar to a video game but hooked up to a rig with a steering wheel and pedals. This exercise revealed that, in Liam’s words, he “wasn’t that bad.”
His family bought a kart for him to try out. Once he took it out for a spin on a track in Denton, his racing career was put into motion.
“I definitely got my first taste of real speed, and that was good,” Liam says.
He started out small — local races with North Texas Karters, plus regional ones — and leveled up from the Micro Swift class to Mini Swift. The categories are based on the driver’s age, the size of the kart chassis, horsepower and top speed. He proceeded to national racing, which netted him several wins.
“At the end of my Micro Swift career, we switched over to the Italy racing,” Liam says. “My first was 2024. I did seven weeks in Italy, I think, in the summer. So the full summer I left, like, the day school ended, and then I got back a week before school. I think I only had four days at home the entire summer, but it was really fun.”
This is when he realized that his hobby was turning serious. He went from finishing in the top 10 in Italy to the top five and almost reaching the podium. Liam leveled up again to the class X30 Junior in America or OKJ in Europe.
Now, 90% of his time is spent racing, says Liam’s father, Majed Nachawati, and the season is basically never-ending. This year, he has either completed or is scheduled for races in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and the U.S. in Indiana, North Carolina and Nevada. The competitiveness of this sport is why Liam had to switch from attending Parish Episcopal School in Dallas to the online academy Laurel Springs.
He practices on his three-screen racing simulator at home as well as the one at his apartment in Italy. And he frequently plays games related to his sport.
“When I’m not racing, I’m always racing,” Liam says. Crashes do happen, but in Liam’s case, they tend to be more akin to fender benders than fiery explosions. Sometimes they’re just setbacks that can be recovered from.
“When you crash, I think for me, it gives me a bit more hunger to try to come back and still get a good result from what, obviously, I came from, was last place with a big gap,” Liam says. “Trying to recover a lot of positions is hard, but I would say me driving from the back, I’m quite aggressive. And for me, it’s quite fun to overtake a lot of people.”
Liam once injured his wrist when his steering wheel snapped during a low-impact accident, which resulted
in him having to wear a cast all the way down his dominant right arm for six weeks.
“It was like you were a toddler again,” his mother, Alma Nachawati, says about taking care of her son during this time.
But Liam didn’t completely take the time off. In fact, he thinks he came back stronger. He still practiced on his simulator, only using one hand. And he made it to the podium in races after returning to the track.
“I’m never really scared of crashing,” he says. “It’s always a risk every time you go out on the track.”
And in this sport, being fearless is a good thing.
“If they have fear, unfortunately, they’re going to be a bit timid when they come to racing and all that stuff, which is normal,” says Liam’s engineer (mechanic), Bill McLaughlin. “Most people have fear, but if you don’t, then you just have that little bit of edge that you can make the pass and not worry about it versus someone that’s going to be a bit timid about it. Just that little bit makes a difference.”
Watching him on the track is scary for Alma but Majed says this sport is no less destructive than more traditional ones.
“On an average race weekend, there’s a risk he may be in a bad crash, but knock on wood, most race weekends, he’s not in a crash,” Majed says. “He may rub bumpers, he may do this or that, but he’s not violently crashing into a kid, full speed, every play. In my perspective, I think football and other sports like soccer, where you’re using your head to hit the ball, and hockey, where you’re beating each other up and getting in fights, I think those sports pose a greater continuing danger than the isolated incidents that happen on the track with far less frequency.”
To prevent serious injuries, he wears a rib protector, chestplate, HANS device to safeguard his neck, gloves and, of course, a helmet with a chin strap. His whole suit is fire retardant. He changes out his visors depending on the weather and now uses contacts instead of glasses, which can be dangerous if they fog up.
Liam’s helmet features both the U.S. and Lebanese flags as markers of his heritage. (He’s also part Mexican but couldn’t fit that flag on the helmet.) The comic book character Venom is also pictured on the head gear and has been since Liam’s first coach designed his first painted helmet and added the iconic anti-hero. Now, Venom’s presence is a tradition.
Majed recalled a moment where a competitor crashed with Liam, and when that driver was trapped, Liam helped him get out of the kart.
“His character shows that above competitiveness and winning comes sportsmanship and professionalism,” Liam’s father says.
McLaughlin has worked with other kids who race, and by now, he can tell who has what it takes and who doesn’t. Liam is one of those who has what it takes.
“If he wants to be a race car driver,” he says, “he’ll be a race car driver.”
WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS THAT NOBODY KNOWS
Dallas Public Library will see changes within the system by the next city budget
Story by ADVOCATE STAFF
What’s happening to City Hall? And did alley trash ever really get figured out? Are the Dallas Stars leaving us to go north? What are we doing with the Neiman Marcus Downtown? Why can’t we stay on budget?
Dallas isn’t quite good at definitive decisions. And now there’s been talk of closures, regions, flagships, naming rights, coffee shops and passport offices. We don’t know what to do about our libraries.
There have been three options that have been discussed to mitigate funding issues, one of which includes branch closures. City council members and some residents hope to keep all branches open, but there has not been a resolution to keep all libraries open permanently. The current budget problems don’t make things clearer.
It all started with the City of Dallas’ Fiscal Year 2025-26 Budget. City leaders did not include funds to keep the Skillman Southwestern Library open. It also stated that the Dallas Public Library was tasked with “reimagining services through the creation of a library regional model,” which would utilize flagship locations with extended services and identify up to four branches for potential closure in the FY 2026-27.
This was approved on Sept. 18, 2025. After outrage, a few last-ditch saving efforts and a tug-of-war, Skillman Southwestern Library closed Sept. 27, 2025.
“No one wants to close libraries, but my predecessor was put in a position, just like I am being now, with significant budget pressures,” says Manya Shorr, Dallas Public Library director. “And she looked at a map and saw that there were a number of very close libraries to Skillman Southwestern and made the best recommendation she could at the time.”
At the beginning of the year, Shorr presented a regional model plan to the Quality of Life, Arts and Cultural Committee, which would create five flagship libraries that provide extended hours and expanded programming and services to offset the closure of the branches.
The selected flagships, Fretz Park, Vickery Park, Pleasant Grove, Hampton-Illinois and Bachman Lake, were chosen based on proximity to major intersections and public transit. Additionally, two more flagships are planned to be selected for the Southwest and East regions, depending on the 2027-28 FY development.
To address a $2.6 million budget reduction requirement for the next fiscal year, Oak Lawn, Skyline, Renner Frankford and Arcadia
Park branches were slated to close to provide general fund savings. Since Arcadia Park is maintained in partnership with Dallas ISD, there’s a potential for the district to take over the management of the branch.
The recommendations for the closures were selected based on three elements: community need (median household income, population of high school completion, population under 5 years old), library usage (checkouts, computer sessions, programs, program attendance) and library coverage (reachability within a 15-minute drive for residents, square footage of the branch).
“So when we learned the names of the libraries, of course, and we wanted to make sure that none of the libraries were closed. That’s when we all came out, people who lived in those areas, as well as just library lovers in general, saying, ‘This is silly,’” says Denise McGovern, executive director of the Friends of the Dallas Public Library.
At the conclusion of the January committee meeting, council members urged Shorr to return with a proposal to keep all branches open, evaluate the proximity of branches to similar City facilities (such as community, recreation and cultural centers), expand information on community access, additional features to
Illustration via Getty/Andrea
Posada Escobar.
consider (such as voting and other external services), and revenue considerations.
Following the presentation of the regional model, a survey commissioned by the Friends of the Dallas Public Library was conducted from Feb. 13-26.
In the survey, 97% of respondents supported that funding should be maintained or increased. Majorities opposed closing four branch libraries in exchange for expanded hours at five others (73%), opposed the regional/flagship model in general (72%) and opposed the closing of some libraries even to avoid reductions in hours, staffing and services at remaining libraries (53%).
“ The survey … is just one data point that we used to make updated recommendations to the Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee because it’s not statistically significant,” Shorr says. “It was just an open survey, and granted, 4,000 people filled it out in two weeks, which is amazing, but it did not necessarily represent the entire city.”
Outrage against the library closures seems to be more conceptual than personal. Forty-seven percent of respondents said closures wouldn’t affect them or declined to answer.
When asked about their preferences on how to solve the funding issue, the majority of respondents thought the City should increase funding toward libraries. If unable to do so, the majority thought libraries should keep all branches open and reduce hours citywide. Closing some branches to utilize the flagship model was the third choice for most respondents.
Willingness to travel to a library if their library was closed was about 50-50.
The results of the survey were included in an April update to the Quality of Life, Arts and Cultural Committee. Shorr presented the three options. One, the regional model with four closures and five flagships, originally presented Jan. 20, 2026. A second option with flagships and no branch closures. Lastly, keeping everything the same, no closures and no flagships option.
The second flagship model where all branches stay open, was the most well-received by the committee.
“That’s wonderful, except that still doesn’t solve the issue of the $2.6 million in the budget,” McGovern says. “And so if the money continues to be cut, the entire system is still intact and has a lot of opportunity, but still doesn’t have the funding.”
To address the funding issue for the
flagship model, Shorr presented options to help raise revenue in the branches. Proposals included increased room rental costs, incorporating paid parking to the central library and seeking to add passport offices to libraries in areas that could use that service.
Around the horseshoe, District 7 Council member Adam Bazaldua suggested additional revenue options such as sponsorship and naming-rights opportunities or leasing options for coffee shops.
“I think the problem is the public library is not designed to be a revenue-driving department,” Shorr says, adding that to make it so, the library system’s mission of being “free and open to the public” would need to change. “We don’t have a model that supports raising that kind of revenue that would offset our budget. So I can’t imagine we would ever make up enough money … to fill a $2.6 million budget shortfall.”
In a similar vein, McGovern is wary about how operations could be affected if all 29 libraries remain open without the $2.6 million in funding to the library system.
“The biggest part of it is getting the funding back so that it doesn’t have an impact that causes loss of hours or personnel,” McGovern says. “I mean, it’s a lot of money, but not a lot of money in the giant pot of the budget.”
But it’s quite expensive to run buildings, and reductions would have to be more extensive if the flagship model was implemented. Shorr says one of the ways to find budget dollars is by substantially reducing staff positions and hours.
It’s not like the City just needs to scale back $2.6 million. Currently, the City has an expected $34 million shortfall and has a spending and hiring freeze. This means we’re not over budget yet, but we’re likely not going to stay in line with the biggest budget that Dallas has ever seen at $5.2 billion. The bulk of the deficit is public safety overtime and increased medical claims out of the self-insured employee health fund. But decreased revenue streams like property and sales taxes, while infrastructure needs continue to surge, aren’t helping either.
On May 3, Mayor Eric Johnson released a statement condemning council members for speaking out against closing libraries after approving a budget last year that recommended the potential closure of up to four library branches.
“Fiscal responsibility is a year-round,
full-time job. If your elected officials talk about it 11 months of the year but refuse to support spending reductions when voting on the budget — or if they vote in favor of budget reductions only to fight against their implementation — Dallas’ budget will never be fixed,” he said.
Dallasites are expected to get a more definitive plan when the city manager releases her proposed budget in mid-August, Shorr says.
“I would say that no library director wants to close branches, least of all me,” she says. “I’ve been in public libraries for 30 years. It’s gut wrenching to think about closing library locations, but the City of Dallas has not adequately funded the Dallas Public Library for 25 years, and we’ve really reached a tipping point where our budget does not support the number of locations that we have, and so the goal in recommending the regional model with the closures was really to rightsize our budget so that we could create sustainability in service to our community going forward.”
Budgets for libraries are tight nationwide, but Dallas’ issue is also “not the norm,” Shorr says.
She pointed to a chart in the regional model presentation from January that compares Dallas to other cities of similar populations, which seems to show that Dallas’ library system is underfunded.
Despite this, Shorr wants libraries to offer more services to Dallasites, not less. But the City may have to think outside the box to accomplish that goal.
“No matter what happens, we will still be exploring creative and innovative ways to offer more library services in the future,” Shorr says. “They’re going to look different than what Dallas is used to right now, which is just standalone libraries. But I’ve been talking about this for a year, the idea that we have more libraries in retail areas, whether strip malls or malls, that we have more partnership opportunities, that we have smaller footprint libraries that don’t cost as much. That, along with the flagships, is the future of the Dallas Public Library and how we’re going to offer more to people in the future.”
Which plan will the City ultimately go with? That’s unclear, and nothing is off the table yet.
Meet East Dallas’ Park & Recreation Board representatives
Here’s what they have cooking in our neighborhood parks
Story by MADELYN EDWARDS
Photography by KATHY TRAN
Informed Dallasites know that our representatives at the municipal level aren’t limited to city council. There is also the Dallas Park and Recreation Board, which oversees the department of the same name. This board was established by the City Charter and includes 15 members (one appointed by each city council member and the mayor). Four of them represent East Dallas.
District 7: Daniel Wood Territory in East Dallas: White Rock Hills area
Best way to contact: ParkBoardDist7@dallas.gov
This Buckner Terrace neighbor and Wisconsin native, who moved to Dallas in 1998, found his way onto the Park and Recreation Board after advocating for more trees to be planted in Everglade Park.
“The park was really desolate, and it was just nothing, so I fought, fought, fought to get more trees, and I couldn’t get them,” Wood says. “I think I got 10 trees, and they’re like, ‘You can’t get any more.’ So I figured out that if I advocate through the park board, I can get more stuff. That was when I first learned about what the park board was, and so I got on the park board, and basically, I just said, ‘We’re going to plant trees,’ and we’re currently up to about 300 and some trees.”
Wood, who is in his final term on the board, didn’t take all the credit for improvements in the parks but praised the people who actually do the work — City staff. In the same breath, he spotlighted maintenance as a challenge to tackle.
“We have a lot of great people that care a lot and work their tails off to make our parks great,” he says. “Sometimes, it’s challenging because of the funding, so that’s going to probably be our biggest challenge in the future is we can build all these great things, but we can’t maintain them. We really got to come up with a way that we can maintain our parks at a better rate, so that we’re not in the positions of having dilapidated and rundown parks and buildings and rec centers and all this stuff that’s falling apart because it doesn’t do us any good if we have it if it’s falling apart.”
In the White Rock Hills part of his district, he is proud of the new Lakeland Hills Park dog park, which was installed last year. There have also been tree plantings there with more on the way, particularly between the alley and soccer court. Pickleball courts are coming to Lakeland Hills, and a new playground is needed. And the skate park, the City’s first, is expected to be redone and is funded by bond money.
“Right now, it’s a concrete pad that has metal ramps and stuff like that. We’re actually going to build it in and probably put a small bowl in some of the concrete features, make it more of a permanent type,” Wood says. “Back when it was built, it was the first skate park in Dallas, but it was just kind of like an add-on kind of feature. So they’re going to actually do a little bit more permanent-type feature, and we’re excited about it.”
Caring for City parks is up to neighbors, too. Picking up trash and joining or creating a friends group contributes to making parks great.
“We have a lot of opportunities for people to be supportive,” Wood says.
Dallas Park and Recreation Board members representing East Dallas are (from left) Daniel Wood for District 7, Michael Jung for District 9, Fonya Naomi Mondell for District 2 and Rudy Karimi for District 14.
District 9: Michael Jung
Territory in East Dallas: Casa Linda, Lakewood, Forest Hills, Little Forest Hills, Old Lake Highlands, Lochwood
Best way to contact: peter.jung@dallas.gov
Jung is the newest park board member representing East Dallas. He was appointed last year after Maria Hasbany resigned.
Jung, who has been hanging around District 9 since 1966 and has resided here since 1980, worked with District 9 Council member Paula Blackmon before as her appointee to the City Plan and Zoning Commission and the Charter Review Commission. He also previously chaired the White Rock Lake Task Force. So when Blackmon asked him to join the park board, it only took him 24 hours to say yes.
His goal?
“Just more of what I’ve been doing for the last 40 years — protecting White Rock Lake,” Jung says. “Now, let me hasten to say, White Rock Lake takes up about 75% of my time and attention, but there are 19 parks in District 9, and I’m sensitive to the fact that I’m the park board member for those parks as well.”
The new White Rock Master Plan was adopted recently during his tenure, though Jung at one point was opposed to the concept of it.
“I thought to do it in a way that would respect all the planning processes that had gone on before was going to be a very elaborate process, and I don’t think the City thought initially it was going to be an elaborate process, but I was right, and it took almost three years and a lot of revisions to the original draft,” he says. “But I’m very proud of the way it came out because it’s got some good new ideas in it, but it respects, really, 40 years worth of citizen-involved planning processes.”
The master plan doesn’t eliminate old proposals as long as they aren’t contradictory or are obsolete, Jung says. For example, firework displays were prohibited in 1986 at the lake because when the City hosted a pyrotechnic show there in the 1980s, cars clogged the narrow roads and filled small lots. Jung says a man died of a heart attack because the situation hindered the paramedics’ ability to reach him in time. The new plan leaves important rules like that one intact.
Upcoming projects near the lake and trail include sinkhole prevention and erosion control. Jung reports that White Rock Lake Trail will eventually have to be closed for six weeks while an abandoned wastewater pipe, the collapse of which led to the sinkhole earlier this year by the spillway, is filled.
As for erosion, waves undercutting the shoreline near Garland Road, Dallas Water Utilities plans to add baffles on the dam.
“I think of it like a pachinko machine, where the ball comes down and hits this barrier and goes over and comes down and then hits that barrier,” Jung says. “They’re going to have this crisscross system of baffles that slows the water down, so when it hits the bottom, most of its force has already been absorbed by the baffles. And as part of that, we think they’re going to agree to participate in putting sheet piling up to keep the trail area from being undercut.”
Dredging is a priority for White Rock Lake, though the previous practice of doing a big dredging project every 20-25 years is not sustainable, Jung says. Now leaders are thinking of developing infrastructure to do smaller projects on a semi-continuous basis or just do enough to ensure safe boating depths in key areas.
However, smaller projects may not make the lake any better than it is today as 170,000 cubic yards of sediment continues to enter each year.
“Most of the sediment comes from the major flood events when we have three days of pouring rain,” Jung says. “So if you can design a smaller facility to prevent a huge dollop of sediment flowing down, if you could deal with the sediment 10 or 15 days a year, that would have a huge impact.”
Aside from the aforementioned projects and continuing to make White Rock Lake Park safer, there’s not much that needs to change.
“As long as you provide a safe and convenient environment for people, less is more,” he says.
District 2: Fonya Naomi Mondell Territory in East Dallas: Deep Ellum, parts of Old East Dallas and Far East Dallas Best way to contact: fonya.mondell@dallas.gov
Women are a minority presence on the Dallas Park and Recreation Board, and we in East Dallas can claim one of them as a representative. To Mondell, she’s not on the board to be well-known — just a volunteer acting on behalf of the neighbors in her district.
“I just get things done and help, and I’m just a bridge,” she says. “I’m the connector.”
And she means that. Mondell keeps in touch with friends groups to hear and meet local needs as well as connecting community leaders to the right City contact.
“The City is a huge entity, and if you don’t know how to navigate it, and if you don’t have the way to navigate it, it’s really hard,” she says. “I don’t mind calling a couple people, somebody 5 million times.”
Mondell, a longtime East Dallas resident who grew up off Henderson Avenue, joined the park board about five years ago. She was part of the effort to save the baseball field at Reverchon Park and was asked to join when Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Moreno left the Park Board to run for city council.
“I had always been active in City politics on the zoning side and fighting developers, making sure that the integrity and the quality of life in the neighborhoods were where we could all lay our heads at night,” she says. “I also served on the Boys and Girls Clubs board and was president for a very long time, for 15 years, off of Worth (Street). So rec and kids and parks and everything was my niche.”
In her tenure so far, Garrett Park at Henderson and Greenville Avenues got a new playground and has been cleaned up, Mondell says. Last year, the Old East Dallas Work Yard Park on Fitzhugh Avenue received a splash pad. Thanks to Nancy Lieberman Charities, a new basketball court was built at the Work Yard a few years ago. Putting these kinds of improvements is supposed to help ward off unwanted activity.
“Activating it to where it’s a place where parents and caretakers and grandparents and cousins and aunts and kids can all come in and enjoy and play and feel safe and find that peace that they need, the reason why they go to the park in the first place,” she says.
Creating equity has been important to Mondell, ensuring that parks amenities are well-maintained everywhere, not just in affluent neighborhoods.
“Like, a parent or child can go to the bathroom, and it’s clean, just like you would expect anywhere, but sometimes they get overlooked because it might be in that area,” she says. “To me, it was all about equitable opportunity and making sure that the park user was in a place where they could be happy and that it would create happiness.”
A History of Exceptional Dentistry
District 14: Rudy Karimi Territory in East Dallas: Hollywood/Santa Monica, Lakewood Heights, Lower Greenville, the M Streets, Junius Heights, a western part of Old East Dallas
Best way to contact: rudy.karimi@ dallas.gov
For East Dallasites on Facebook, Karimi may need no introduction. He uses his dedicated park board page to provide information frequently, from the Breakaway Music Festival situation to new playgrounds to potential budget cuts. But being online allows him to listen as well as talk.
“On Facebook and X, I am reading what people want,” he says. “I’m reading the good, the bad and the ugly. And that allows me to reach out to some folks and be like, ‘Hey, I picked up a trend.’” Karimi came to Dallas by way of Iran, Louisiana and Plano and has lived in East Dallas for 11 years. Before getting on the park board, he was an outspoken opponent of plans to turn the soccer field at Willis C. Winters Park across from Woodrow Wilson High School into a football stadium. This proposal didn’t come to fruition, and in this victory, Karimi caught the attention of District 14 Council member Paul Ridley.
He took the chance to serve on the park board five years ago and plans to stay on as long as Ridley is on council. And after that, he’s eyeing a spot on council himself.
Despite his stance on the proposed Willis C. Winters Park football stadium, Karimi is not anti-change.
“There is a balance between preservation and innovation,” he says. “We’ll probably never find it, but we should always continue looking for it. … We have some historic parks well over 100 years old. They are worth preserving, but we have things in them, like playgrounds and ball fields, that don’t operate like 20 years ago.”
For Willis C. Winters Park, progress includes the project to upgrade the turf. The soccer field was also redone a few years ago, thanks in no small part to community fundraising. Under Karimi’s tenure, the City has added a walking path around Cochran Park and a sand volleyball pit to Tietze Park. Both amenities continue to be used by
the community — stroller pushers at Cochran and all ages, including teens, at Tietze — despite the sand volleyball pit being opposed by some neighbors at first.
“The best part about that is six months after it was done, I ran into some of the folks who were opposed to it, and I said, ‘Look, we’re six months in. What are your thoughts?’ And one lady said, ‘All of those things that I said before turned out to be untrue,’” Karimi says. “That’s music to my park-loving ears.”
Per the last bond program, playgrounds will be replaced with new and innovative ones at Willis C. Winters, Tietze, Cochran and Exall, in that order. Karimi says there will be opportunities for neighbors to provide feedback.
The ambitious park board member has plans to turn the parking lot off Clermont Avenue, which has been the site of “gunfire, nefarious activities,” at Tenison Park into the City’s first traffic garden. This is a space that would be designed as a miniature city with roads, crosswalks, signs, railroad tracks and the like to teach young children how to ride a bicycle and be safe on the streets.
“It’s designed for bicycles, but if you got a scooter, you’re welcome. If you got roller skates, you’re welcome. If you’re on an electric mobility device, you’re welcome. If you just want to come push a stroller, you’re welcome,” Karimi says. “We’re inclusive of anything with wheels, and even if you just want to walk it, if you got feet.”
Police and community groups could schedule programming at the traffic garden or it could be used as is, he says. It could also be helpful to teens learning to drive, bike and skate alongside adults.
Karimi also imagines other amenities to add to the traffic garden attraction, like a shipping container filled with bike repair kits volunteers to fix bicycles and repurposed play features. This would take a somewhat unsavory area and make it wholesome.
“These are all bigger ideas of just what could start if the park department and I work together with transportation, (Dallas Police Department), the council member’s office, perhaps even the mayor, and our partners, like BikeDFW and other nonprofits, and really do something that’s never been done,” he says.
The White Rock YMCA has served the community since 1955, offering day camp, education, and youth programs. Today, we provide activities for all ages—from infants to seniors. More than
strengthen
TALE OF TWO RECS
Exall Park is historic as it was established in 1914 after residents pressured the City, and it is named after noteworthy Dallas developer Henry Exall, who built one of our earliest skyscrapers, according to the Friends of Exall Park’s website.
White Rock Hills & Exall Park neighbors asked for decades. Now, they’re receiving.
Story by MADELYN EDWARDS
Photography by LAUREN ALLEN
THIS MAY BE THE AGE OF THE RECREATION CENTER IN DALLAS.
Per the voter-approved 2024 bond proposal, recreation centers are being renovated and improved throughout the city. Many of the recreation center-related bond projects have lower budgets and won’t be huge undertakings. But doing any renovations at all shows that the City considers those spaces as worth maintaining on some level.
In East Dallas, that includes new centers at Exall Park and White Rock Hills Park. Both are in the design phase, and a couple of community meetings have been held by architectural firms for each project to get feedback from neighbors.
The new recreation center at the historic Exall Park in Bryan Place is replacing the current one in the same location, but it is expected to increase its sqaure footage.
“My biggest project ever is the Exall Rec Center,” District 14 Park and Recreation Board member Rudy Karimi says. “When I go speak in front of people, I say, ‘This is the second biggest investment in Council District 14 parks ever. Anybody want to guess the first?’ Some people know it; some people don’t — Klyde Warren, and that was, at the time, a $20-plus million investment. Well, now we’re $18 million.”
Friends of Exall Park members have been pushing for a new recreation center since the 2000s. Karimi describes the current one as being inadequate for a long time.
“It was always small,” he says. “There’s nothing visually appealing to it. There’s nothing historically or architecturally significant to that building.”
Forward motion started happening in 2022 as Karimi and Council member Paul Ridley put the project on the front burner.
“It was always my No. 1 priority because I remember the first time I went to a rec center when I was a kid, when I rode my bike to a rec center, and those things stay with you,” Karimi says. “The community near Exall doesn’t have that because there’s really nothing to do there.”
The one in White Rock Hills Park,
which just opened in 2021 at Ferguson and Highland Roads, will be completely new to the community. During a public meeting regarding the recreation center, one woman was thanked more than once for her dedication to this project — Vikki Martin, Ferguson Road Initiative executive director.
FRI was born in the ’90s in response to “escalating violent crime,” says Martin, who was a teacher in her mid-30s around this time. Through town hall meetings, Martin and her peers realized a lot was missing from their community, like sidewalks, a library and, of course, a recreation center.
Technically, White Rock Hills is sandwiched between two recreation centers — Samuell Grand to the west and Harry Stone to the northeast. These may be accessible by vehicle but not by foot.
“The analysis that we have done now that we’re getting the rec center is to walk to Harry Stone is over an hour from this area,” Martin says. “Samuell Grand may seem close geographically, but there are barriers to getting there — no sidewalk, going around the golf course.”
So Martin and the FRI rallied to get needs met and shut down problematic businesses.
“Where the rec center is, that’s where two crime magnet apartments were,” Martin says. “And the park next door, that was the first apartment we got torn down in 1996.”
More recently, the City has fulfilled major initiatives, like White Rock Hills Branch Library opening in 2012, Highland Road getting sidewalks and bike lanes in 2022, and Trinity Forest Spine Trail connecting Far East Dallas to the City’s trail system in 2023.
The path to getting a recreation center hasn’t been a crystal stair for a few reasons, according to Martin. It’s an expensive endeavor, and it has shifted from three different City Council districts over the past 26 years as the maps have been redrawn. Money was allocated to the design and construction of the recreation center, but it turned out not to be enough, so the land was bought as neighbors waited for the next bond cycle.
The future center is located tech -
The location of White Rock Hills Park near the corner of Ferguson and Highland Roads was previously the site of low-quality, poorly managed apartments.
nically in District 2, but District 7 Park and Recreation Board member Daniel Wood knows it will benefit the people he represents in White Rock Hills.
“They’re going to do a great center,” Wood says. “It’s going to be awesome, and they’ve advocated for many, many years, and that’s the important thing, is the community has advocated for it, so the community has finally achieved what they’ve asked for, and they worked hard to get there.”
To Martin, the White Rock Hills Recreation Center’s benefit will extend beyond its walls.
“The rec center will be a catalyst for improved housing, redeveloped housing and potential better quality economic development,” she says.
She explains how she wants to see “stable” developers tear down old apartments with poor living conditions and build something better. And who wouldn’t want to live near a park and recreation center to take advantage of the amenities and programs provided?
Many concrete details about both the Exall and White Rock Hills projects are still up in the air as design is being worked on, but it is clear that residents are envisioning these spaces as more than just a place for sports or exercise. In addition to weight rooms and space for exercise classes, they want centers that fit the unique characteristics of their neighborhoods while also including a kitchen and intergenerational community spaces. Local art may have a place in both centers.
Karimi, who spoke highly of the community input process so far, identified two objectives that need to be addressed after the second public meeting for Exall: making sure the building doesn’t majorly obstruct nearby neighbors’ view of Downtown and deciding how big to make the parking lot.
The parking topic came up in the first meeting as well. Architects proposed expanding it per the City’s code, but neighbors differed on whether that would be helpful, since the current lot tends to fill up, or if making it bigger would attract unsavory activity.
Karimi isn’t worried about the lot bringing crime or bad behavior since it’s a dense and activated area with lots of people using the park, which can act as a deterrent, and is surrounded by neighbors who will likely call the police if necessary.
But the park board representative also doesn’t want to have too much parking because it’s “virtually impossible” to revert concrete back into green space once it has already happened. (A discussion of having too much parking also came up at a White Rock Hills Recreation Center community meeting.) Adding more spots after the fact if the lot ends up too small is more doable.
“To me, that’s a fail-fast option. ‘OK, we failed. We didn’t give you enough parking spots. Well, let’s create a new design six months down the road, a year down the road, to add an additional eight spots here while still preserving the charm that you approach from this corner’ because there’s nothing charming about being greeted by a parking lot right in your face,” Karimi says. “Exall is very charming because there’s a friends group, and they do these little pocket gardens and things like that, and they have them scattered throughout the park. And when you walk up to Exall, you’re greeted in a very positive, kind of friendly way. A parking lot ain’t going to do that for you.”
Also, Karimi says the center is currently underutilized because it doesn’t have a gymnasium. So it makes sense that once it is reconstructed with a gym, more people will come out, including those from outside the neighborhood. He doesn’t think the parking lot should be any less than 60-65 spots.
Both recreation centers have similar timelines and may open at the end of 2028, depending on how fast or slow the process goes.
“It seems like a gabillion years away, but in the grand scheme of city life and projects getting done in the city, you blink your eyes three times, and boom, you’re done,” Karimi says. “Things do move quickly.”
When White Rock Hills Recreation Center is built, that won’t necessarily be the end of the story as it is meant for additional phases, perhaps through strategic partnerships, in the future, Martin says.
So is this the age for Dallas recreation centers? Citywide, Karimi thinks not, but definitely for East Dallas as neighbors from both around Exall Park and White Rock Hills were fired up. When mentioning Exall Park’s project to redo the recreation center, Martin only had three words to say: “It needs it.”
“We were having a moment. It wasn’t like that across town, though,” Karimi says. “There were other park board members who said, ‘I don’t want to put $5 million into renovating my existing rec center because I need it for something else.’ And they had their valid purposes. But here, different story. Give us these rec centers because they’re missing right now.”
Unlike Exall, White Rock Hills currently doesn’t have a recreation center. It will be located next to the park, which opened about five years ago.
Exall Park Recreation Center on Adair Street between Live Oak and Bryan Streets “needs” to be reconstructed, Vikki Martin says.
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Are you ready for rainbows, East Dallas? Pride Month is upon us, and neighbor JJ – last name withheld by request – is eager to lend her support. In fact, she’s already picked out what she’ll wear to the Pride Parade Downtown on June 6: a “Free Mom Hugs” T-shirt. JJ, a resident of this part of town for over 30 years, is the mother of three, the foster mom of many a puppy, and a staunch ally of the LGBTQ+ community.
She recently marched with other protesters over the state-mandated removal of rainbow crosswalks in Oak Lawn. She offers love and support to queer family and friends and is signed up with Stand in Pride, a program which connects members of the LGBTQ+ community with allies. And, of course, she wouldn’t miss those wonderful Pride parades.
She looks forward to offering her support at the parade, one of several Pride Month events in Dallas. “I’m attending and wearing the shirt to support my nephew who is gay. Also to support everyone attending and to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. Too many children are ostracized by their own parents due to their sexuality.”
Pride Month is an annual celebration of the many contributions made by the LGBTQ+ community to history, society and cultures worldwide and an opportunity to commemorate those lost to HIV/AIDS and homophobic violence.
The seeds of JJ’s acceptance, tolerance and respect for others were sown early. “My father – born in 1935 – was incredibly open-minded and raised us to be kind and engage with people we encounter by looking them in the eye and having a conversation,” she recalls. “He told me at 13 that if I ever brought a
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
By PATTI VINSON
NEIGHBORHOOD
P R I D E
For one longtime East Dallas resident, allyship means showing up
friend home that was not willing to do those two things, he wanted me to reconsider the friendship.”
JJ also remembers her dad as “evolved and intelligent,” with a heart for the marginalized. “He was a champion for women and always told me I could do and be anything I wanted. He chose two women as pallbearers for his funeral in 1987, and the priest was furious!” she remembers.
The lessons handed down from her dad remained with JJ as she entered high school. “I was a competitive athlete, and I had teammates throughout high school who were lesbians.” For JJ, who has never identified as LGBTQ+, acceptance of others different from herself came about merely by being with them and getting to know them simply as people. “It was more exposure than thought and continued through college and beyond.”
During her college years at University of North Texas and University of Texas at Dallas, JJ developed close relationships with some in the queer community. “I waited tables with several people who were LGBTQ+ and made fast friends with a hilarious gay man and a lesbian. We stayed in touch.” Through adulthood, she has had dear friends who are bisexual, gay or lesbian.
A few years ago, JJ found herself serving as an ally for a family member. “My nephew came out to me at 17. I told him I loved him and that I have always been proud of him, still am and always will be. I also told him that sexuality is just a portion of the entire person he is, not his complete identity,” she says, adding that she offered him a bit of guidance. “I advised him to ignore heterosexual people who are so focused on what happens
between two consenting adults in private. Those people don’t question heterosexuals in the same way.”
In the last few years, JJ has attended local Pride parades, wearing her rainbow “Free Mom Hugs” shirt. “Too many to count,” is how many she says have taken her up on that special hug. “I’ve hugged people from teenagers to a man who was 74.”
Many of the hug recipients expressed to JJ their gratitude to “receive something they have never received from a parent or loved one.” Some told her heartbreaking stories of parents and other family members disowning them when they came out. Some expressed a wish that their family was as accepting. One person said, “I’m pretending you’re my mom, if that’s OK.” Another asked her to stand in at their wedding.
“I’ve heard deeply personal stories about being ostracized, homeless and even suicidal. Most interactions are brief but each one is meaningful,” she sighs.
JJ says her heart breaks hearing some of the stories, but she leaves each event filled with gratitude and happiness.
“The gratitude comes from showing acceptance and love to someone who has not received it from their family. It’s energizing to give a stranger some much-needed love and acknowledgment. The smiles and tears are so touching, but feeling them completely accept your hug is very rewarding. That brief, physical and emotional connection makes my heart full.”
PATTI VINSON is a guest writer who has lived in East Dallas for more than 20 years. She’s written for the Advocate and Real Simple magazine.
