I was not disappointed! Dean Highlanders came through! When I cruised back over to the triangle earlier today, there was a big, black, beautiful bag of trash for me to collect and place at our usual dropping off site at Mitchell Park:
So, to whoever showed up and helped clean the neighborhood and pave the way for Hillcrest Park: thank you! You restored my hope in doing things the hard way. Our next conservancy initiative service project will be on November 14th (a Saturday). I’ll wait around for more than 15-20 minutes next time! I’m thinking we hit the alleyway between Windsor and Live Oak from 30th to 26th, but I’m open to suggestions…
We had a good turnout this morning, with some Dean Highlanders and some members of Baylor’s Alpha Epsilon Delta Honors Society showing up to do the hard things.
We met at Highland Baptist Church’s Wellness Center parking lot and hit the alleyway in between Maple Ave and the church from 30th Street all the way down to 27th Street:
We then jumped in our cars and hit up Zion Hill Baptist Church, Wenz Park, and Mitchell Park:
Check out all the garbage we collected:
Big shout-out goes to the one and only Dr. Jim SoRelle for bringing lemonade with him. It hit the spot perfectly. Our next conservancy initiative cleanup will be October 10th. If you’ve got an alleyway or yard or street you’d like to nominate for a service project, click here and fill out this form.
We will absolutely be doing our first cleanup post-summer break on Saturday September 26th, and our friends from Baylor’s Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED) Honor Society will be joining us again!
We are going to meet in the parking lot of Highland Baptist Church that’s next to the church’s new Wellness Center. Here it is on a map:
Our next Quarterly Meeting, by the way, will be before the neighborhood cleanup, on Thursday, September 17th 24th, at 6pm. We are still trying to find a spot to hold it, since administrative functions at Dean Highland Elementary School, our traditional meeting spot, are in flux.
I trust your summer is going well. We on the DHNA board just wanted to remind you that the Dean Highland Neighborhood Association fought for a park at the Hillcrest location about 10 years ago. We were told by city council then that there were plenty of other green spaces nearby to enjoy.
I recently received the same reply while trying to get a humble footpath installed over at Wenz Park, and it reminded me of just how precarious our park situation is. I spent 12 months making phone calls, writing emails, and researching history only to get a short, curt email stating that there are plenty of other nearby options for myself and my family to enjoy in Waco.
We might get the same response from the City for our Hillcrest Park advocacy if we don’t continue to keep pressure on Baylor, Scott, and White and our City representatives.
So, we are calling on all Dean Highland residents to send an email to our City Council representative, Darius Ewing, reminding him that he works for us and that we want a world-class park in the space that is currently occupied by an empty lot. If you’re not confident in your writing prowess, just copy-and-paste this:
Dr Dear Mr. Ewing,
The Dean Highland Neighborhood Association is committed to bringing a 14-acre, world-class park to the empty Hillcrest lot.
We are here to collaborate and bargain, not grovel for slivers of green space. Please ensure, Mr. Councilman, that Dean Highlanders get the respect and dignity they deserve when it comes to this space. As of today, this has not happened. The lot is still empty. The garbage is still piling up. And the intent of the land’s donors — a vast space for the public good – has not been met and may even be considered to be actively ignored by City actors and Baylor, Scott, and White.
You depend on me for my vote, and I am actively paying attention to how you treat my neighborhood and the ongoing Hillcrest Park debacle.
Feel free to “cc” the Dean Highland Neighborhood Association to the email you send to our councilman, too. Mr. Ewing’s email address is ccouncil4@wacotx.gov, and our email address is deanhighlandwaco@gmail.com.
This is our neighborhood Dean Highlanders, and sometimes we have to fight for what is ours.
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!
If you read through it, you will notice that there is no guarantee of a park, and even if the City puts one in, they might not make it the world-class crown jewel of Waco’s Parks system that the historic site deserves. Which means that we still have a lot of work to do.
Step 1 is helping us take care of the few green spaces that Dean Highland does have: this Saturday (Feb. 28th), from 10am-noon, the neighborhood association will be cleaning Mitchell Park and fellowshipping as we do it. (This is a great opportunity for kids to get some much-needed civic service under their belt!)
Here’s Mitchell Park (3024 Mitchell Ave., Waco, TX 76708) on a map:
Step 2 begins on Sunday (Mar. 1st) at the Hillcrest lot. KWTX 10 News will be there with a camera to talk about the lot and the City’s attempts at purchasing it. Please show up to this event, which begins at 11am. You are invited, and your voice and presence will strengthen our advocacy efforts. Again please come out to the old Hillcrest lot this Sunday (Mar. 1st) beginning at 11am. Here’s the empty lot on a map:
Don’t forget that our bi-monthly Mitchell Park cleaning is happening this Saturday (February 28th). It’s going to be from 10am – noon. Here’s Mitchell Park (3024 Mitchell Ave., Waco, TX 76708) on a map:
Please, we’d love to see you there.
There is another journalist, this time from KWTX 10 News, who will be interviewing members of the Dean Highland Neighborhood Association board on Sunday at 11am at the Hillcrest parking lot:
Please, come to this as well. We realize that many of you have church around this time, but if there was any way you could slip out the back door with the kiddos and show up to the empty parking lot, we’d be obliged.
There is no guarantee of a park at Hillcrest. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. We have to keep fighting for one. Cleaning up the few green spaces that we do have, and keeping a sharp eye on the empty lot and what’s being done with it, are vital to this fight.
Please, make this a Dean Highland weekend and we’ll see you on Saturday and Sunday!
Saturday was cold and windy, but that didn’t stop the neighborhood association from getting outside and taking care of its favorite “pocket park.” We only lasted a little over thirty minutes, but we managed to collect two bags of garbage and decent amount of branches and limbs. Oh, and we found a random bale of hay, too!
Our next scheduled Mitchell Park cleanup is for February 14th (a Saturday). It’ll be from 10am-noon. Check out the pics:
Thanks to all who came out and helped clean up Mitchell Park this past Saturday (Jan. 3rd). It was a total blast. The Adopt-A-Parks program we’re collaborating with didn’t have the equipment we needed to tackle all of the leaves, so some of the guys brought their own tools to help make the cleanup more fun. Here are some pics:
We ended up collecting 25 bags of garbage and leaves for the Adopt-A-Parks program to pick up. More importantly, we made some new connections in the neighborhood:
Our next cleanup for Mitchell Park is scheduled for January 24th (another Saturday). We hope to see you there. Here is where Mitchell Park is located:
It was really great seeing familiar faces and meeting new ones. Service can sometimes seem like a thankless task that’s not worth the effort, but the Dean Highland Neighborhood Association begs to differ. Here are some more pics:
Bring the kids next time. Bring a friend or, better yet, bring a neighbor!
