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!
Hello Dean Highlanders,
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.
As a reminder, the inaugural Dean Highland Conservancy Initiative (DHCI) project was a big hit: we hit an alleyway in between Ethel and Homan from 26th to 27th streets. It was a total blast, and I envision Saturday’s cleanup to be just as fun.
For more on the DHCI in general, check this out.
If you have any questions about this Saturday’s cleanup, shoot us an email!
Hello Dean Highlanders,
Wow, what a week. What a couple of weeks!
We’ve been serving others through our bi-monthly Mitchell Park cleanup. We’ve been advocating like crazy for our vision of Hillcrest Park. On the fellowshipping front, our oral history project (in partnership with Baylor’s Institute for Oral History) has supplemented the best neighborhood holiday party that’s thrown in Waco.
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.)
Thanks, and enjoy your weekends…
Hi Dean Highlanders,
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!
Hi Dean Highlanders,
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!
In fact, you can start by tuning in to our “Voices from Dean Highland” oral history project. Thanks for all your support.
Hi Dean Highlanders,
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!
Hi Dean Highlanders,
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:
Oh, and don’t forget: the city council is voting on whether or not to buy the empty lot on how to re-designate the lot to satisfy environmental quality reviews this Tuesday (Mar. 3rd) late in the morning. So, please, if you are interested in having your voice heard on this matter, be sure to email District 4’s councilman, Darius Ewing, Tuesday afternoon and ask him how the vote went. Here is his email address: ccouncil4@wacotx.gov.
Hello Dean Highlanders,
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.
For now, please spread the news among your fellow neighbors: KWTX 10 News will be at our empty Hillcrest lot at 1pm instead of 11am. Here is a link to our advocacy efforts for Hillcrest Park. Catch you there!
Hi Dean Highlanders,
Your neighborhood association board is hard at work and back in the news advocating for a park in the abandoned Hillcrest lot. This time the Waco Tribune-Herald put us on their front page.
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:
It’s shaping up to be quite the weekend!
Hello Dean Highlanders,
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!