Don’t forget about the neighborhood association’s next quarterly meeting on Thursday (April 23rd). It will begin at 6 o’clock at Dean Highland Elementary School (3300 Maple Ave., Waco, TX 76707). Here’s the school on a map:
The front doors of the school will be locked, so you will have to hang a left (if you’re facing the front doors) and follow the building to the black gate, where you will see an entrance to the cafeteria. This is where you will find us!
We are truly grateful for their help and dedication to service. Because this event was so successful, we will definitely be partnering with them more often this year!
Check out some photos, beginning with Dean Highland Neighborhood Association’s President, Scott Michael, bagging up some garbage and throwing it onto the back of his pickup truck. What service! What heart!
Here are some more photos of the fun we had:
Again we were able to hit both of our pocket parks and dozens of alleyways, which is exactly what the Dean Highland Conservancy Initiative (DHCI) seeks to accomplish as we work toward a world-class park in our empty Hillcrest parking lot. Thanks again to Sara from Parrott Ave for the heads up on this project, and for getting us connected to the folks at Baylor who were able to make this happen on their end.
Our next service project for the DHCI will be Saturday, April 25th. We hope to see you there, and if you’ve got an alleyway or empty lot that you’d like to nominate for some tender lovin’ care, click here to submit your nomination!
Your humble neighborhood association board has teamed up with Baylor to clean up some alleyways and green spaces as part of Baylor’s awesome Steppin’ Out program.
It’s happening tomorrow, April 11th, at 8am, and we’re meeting in Highland Baptist Church’s “red lot,” which is where its new Wellness Center is located.
Baylor is sending 60-80 students our way to help us with our conservancy initiative. Many, many thanks go to Sara on Parrott Ave for putting this whole thing together.
We’ll catch you at 8am tomorrow morning, and don’t forget to bring your attitude of gratitude, baby!
Our “Voices from Dean Highland” is starting to explode in popularity. I recently had the great pleasure of sitting down with none other than the founder-owner of the Quesadilla Factory food truck franchise!
Rey was a good sport, and his story is an inspiring faith-based one.
Rey just recently put his house up on the market, and contributed to the “Voices from Dean Highland” project on March 2, 2026. Given that the neighborhood association’s stated goals are service, advocacy, and fellowship, please be sure to give Rey a hearty “goodbye 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 Rey, or simply say goodbye to him, shoot me (Brandon Christensen) an email and I’ll try to introduce you.
If you, or somebody you know and love, wants to participate in this project, shoot me (Brandon Christensen) an email and we’ll get started. You (yes, you!) are way more interesting than you think.
You can read more about our “Voices from Dean Highland” project here.
A big shout-out to three “new” Dean Highlanders (including a little one!) for showing up and helping us get our conservancy initiative off the ground. We hit the empty-grass-field-portion of our future Hillcrest Park site hard, and we got some fellowshipping in, too:
Our next cleanup will be April 11th. If you’ve got an alleyway you’d like to nominate for a guerilla-style cleanup, just click here and fill out the form!
We will be cleaning the empty lot at Hillcrest Park this Saturday. That’s right, we’re cleaning the empty lot that will hopefully someday be a world-class park. The fun starts at 10am, and will go until noon or so. Here is the empty lot on a map:
Just look for the Dean Highland tent. The folks at Keep Waco Beautiful have loaned us the cleaning equipment for this project.
Henry contributed to the “Voices from Dean Highland” project on September 14, 2024. Given that the neighborhood association’s stated goals are service, advocacy, and fellowship, please be sure to give Henry 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 Henry, or simply fellowship with him, shoot me (Brandon Christensen) an email and I’ll try to introduce you.
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!
