Please don’t forget about the Dean Highland Conservancy Initiative’s launch, happening this Saturday, March 14th, starting at 10am and going until roughly noon.
We are going to hit our alleyways hard with this conservancy, starting with one in the south of the neighborhood in between Ethel and Homan:
You can just park on the side of the streets from 26th through 29th. This is Dean Highland on a Saturday morning. Bring gloves and a mask if you’ve got ’em.
Here’s what we’re up against, but it’s also important to remember that this is what some of our fellow Dean Highlanders have been up against for years without an organizational advocate:
Catch you on Saturday morning, and I hope you had a good spring break. If you have any questions about Saturday, feel free to shoot us an email: deanhighlandwaco@gmail.com.
Meet Mr. Wilbert “Will” A. Morris, Jr., a resident of Dean Highland for 70 years. You read that right: 70 years. He spent a few years in Dallas dancing his nights away, but for the most part of seven decades he has lived in his Summer Avenue residence.
Will remembers all of the grocery stores that were in the neighborhood. Did you know that the building which houses the Metro Phone store and the Advocacy Center was once for a grocery shop? There were more grocery shops, too, in the northeast corner of the neighborhood. It’s hard to imagine a world without a massive H-E-B in it, but Will lived in such a world, and was able to us all about it.
Will’s memory is so incredible that this spotlight would be a book-length expository of knowledge and memories if I tried to summarize everything he knows about Dean Highland. Thankfully, the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University is doing the difficult work for us!
Will is an active and flourishing member of several civil society groups, including Catholic and Bohemian (Czech) charities.
Will contributed to the “Voices from Dean Highland” project on February 27th. Given that the neighborhood association’s stated goals are service, advocacy, and fellowship, please be sure to give Will a hearty greeting if you see him out and about at one of our service projects, advocacy efforts, or quarterly meetings. If you would like to collaborate with Will, or simply fellowship with him, shoot me (Brandon Christensen) an email and I’ll try to introduce you.
There’s no way we’re the only organization dreaming up plans of what to do with it. Our rivals are going to be better funded, better organized, and well-drilled. They won’t necessarily see “service, advocacy, and fellowship” as ideals to be followed or respected.
These rivals might try to give us some crumbs of green space and expect us, as unorganized private citizens, to be grateful for the meal.
This Initiative, if done with grit and determination and a servant-leader mindset, can not only stand up to outside interests but also get us — and future generations of Wacoans – a world-class city park on the entire 14-acre lot.
It starts with service. Not just any service. But service built off the bi-monthly cleanings that we have been doing at Mitchell Park. Service throughout all the different parts — rich, poor, light, dark – of Dean Highland. We are going to shape ourselves into an effective, organized, inclusive, and formidable neighborhood association by pursuing a policy of kindness and neighborly love.
The launch of our the Dean Highland Conservancy Initiative is this Saturday, March 14th, beginning at 10am. We are going to hit our alleyways hard, starting with one in the south of the neighborhood in between Ethel and Homan:
You can just park on the side of the streets from 26th through 29th. This is Dean Highland on a Saturday morning. Bring gloves and a mask if you’ve got ’em.
Here’s what we’re up against, but it’s also important to remember that this is what some of our fellow Dean Highlanders have been up against for years without an organizational advocate:
This is how we cut our organizational chops, Dean Highland Neighborhood Association. Yee-haw. Catch you on Saturday morning, and bring a neighbor!
There’s no doubt about it: the Dean Highland Neighborhood Association has kicked its tempo up a notch. I hope y’all like it.
In order to keep this tempo up, we need your financial support as well as your physical and spiritual support. We won’t be paying ourselves a salary with your donations. We’ll be using it to assert a bit more independence from the City of Waco’s amazing grants program. We’ll be using it to further enhance our ongoing projects. We’ll be using it to launch the Dean Highland Conservancy Initiative. That’s it.
Can you donate to the cause this Friday? If so, here’s our Venmo account. Just click on it to get started. There should be a spot for you to tell us why you’re donating this Friday. Are you giving because you support our ongoing history projects? Or perhaps you want to donate to the war chest we will need to fight for every acre of Hillcrest Park? Are you giving to the flyers and equipment that we utilize to lovingly and humbly serve our neighbors?
Please, we need all the financial support we can get. (If you have any questions about taxes and donations to the neighborhood association, please shoot us an email at deanhighlandwaco@gmail.com.)
Your neighborhood association board has been hard at work behind the scenes and in front of the cameras. The good folks at KWTX 10 News reached out to us to report on our Hillcrest Park fight, and they did a great, thoughtful job. Here is the story.
Careful readers and listeners will have noticed that the DHNA’s next steps are to launch the Dean Highland Conservancy Initiative. We will have more information about this next step in the fight for our vision of Hillcrest Park, but we have already been laying the groundwork for it with our bi-monthly cleanings of Mitchell Park. With our historical heritage, unique social & economic demographics, and laser-like focus on service, advocacy, & fellowship, Dean Highland is perfectly situated to launch this conservancy initiative. Stay tuned!
Yesterday’s (Mar. 3rd) city council vote — to approve or not approve a Municipal Settings Designation for the empty Hillcrest lot – has passed. Hooray! You can check out the video here. Once you click on the link, it will take you to a screen where you can click on the “Executive Session” button:
This will take you right to the vote. Hillcrest Park was first on the agenda.
A big “thanks!” to Melett Harrison at Waco’s Neighborhood Engagement team for digging up the link, and a big “thanks!” to our city councilman, Darius Ewing, for representing us so well. If you feel so inclined, please shoot him a “thank you” message via email to ccouncil4@wacotx.gov.
There will also be another television segment about our advocacy for a world-class park in Dean Highland airing tonight on KWTX 10 News. It will be part of the 10 o’clock edition.
This is just a tiny step towards making our vision for Hillcrest Park a reality. We still have a lot of work to do. Your humble neighborhood association board is currently hatching a plan to keep us engaged in service, advocacy, and fellowship (the DHNA’s stated goals) throughout the neighborhood while the city’s bureaucracy does its thing. Stay tuned!
As some of you may know, the neighborhood association is interested in the history of Dean Highland. We’ve done some pretty cool historical work already — such as our research into the trolley lines that once criss-crossed Waco and Dean Highland, or the creation of our two small “pocket parks” – but we have also entered into a collaborative partnership with Baylor’s Institute for Oral History to gather the stories and memories of the people who have made Dean Highland what it is. You can read more about our “Voices from Dean Highland” project here.
We also thought it would be a good idea to introduce to you the Dean Highlanders who have so far participated in this project. So, without any further adieu, meet Ms. Dianne York!
Dianne moved to Alexander Avenue in 2021, and immediately integrated herself into a loving church home and the broader church community of Waco. Dianne is a veteran (Air Force) and is involved in several ministries.
Dianne contributed to the “Voices from Dean Highland” project on February 27th. Given that the neighborhood association’s stated goals are service, advocacy, and fellowship, please be sure to give Dianne a hearty greeting if you see her out and about at one of our service projects, advocacy efforts, or quarterly meetings. If you would like to collaborate with Dianne, or simply fellowship with her, shoot me (Brandon Christensen) an email and I’ll try to introduce you!
The city’s Neighborhood Engagement team correctly notes that tomorrow’s vote is not going to be about buying the empty lot at Hillcrest. Rather, the vote is:
“only considering the MSD (Municipal Settings Designation) which must be approved by TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environment Quality) so that the property could one day be developed in the future (either publicly or privately).”
With all the press we were getting, we got a bit ahead of ourselves. The vote on Tuesday (Mar. 3) is one small step in the right direction, but not a direct vote on whether the city will buy the property from Baylor, Scott, & White or not. That vote lays in the future (as long as we continue to keep a close eye on its development and continue to steward what little green space we do have).
Again, the vote on Tuesday is simply a small step toward our Hillcrest Park, and the neighborhood association isn’t the only organization interested in its future. Don’t forget to shoot Councilman Darius Ewing a quick email after tomorrow’s vote: ccouncil4@wacotx.gov!
Thanks to all of you who showed up today (Mar. 1st) to speak with KWTX 10 News about the ongoing issues and dreams surrounding our proposed “Hillcrest Park.”
Our segment won’t air until later this week (we’ll keep you updated), so please enjoy these photographs while you wait:
As you all know, KWTX 10 News will be at the empty Hillcrest lot tomorrow (Mar. 1st), but she will be there at 1pm rather than at 11am.
Again, the TV reporter from KWTX 10 News will be at the empty Hillcrest lot at 1pm, which pulls a lot of people out of the “church zone.” Here is the empty lot on a map:
I’d like to also thank those of you who came to the bi-monthly Mitchell Park cleanup this morning. It was a blast. I’ll have some more information on that later in the week.
