While the hardships caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus continue to impact families, there is a group of volunteers that is ramping up their mission to serve, uplift and empower underserved neighborhoods communities in the Metroplex.
Nonprofit Lone Star Human Services has stayed busy since the start of the pandemic and their work continues into the summer.
Executive Director Alli Scott and her team work in struggling communities in Dallas and Fort Worth.
Over the weekend, she and a group of volunteers started a weekly "pop up market" by delivering fresh food and cleaning supplies to families in the Stop 6 neighborhood in Fort Worth. Members brought sidewalk chalk for the children as well.
They've also launched a hygiene cabinet and delivered hygiene and medicine kits to apartment homes in Stop 6.
“When I started this work barely a year ago, I began to bond with individuals not a mission statement,” said volunteer Whitney Johnson. “The pandemic didn't change the needs of the community I'm committed to, it only deepened them. So that's what I think we all have to do if we want to continue to serve- go deeper.”
In Dallas, the group is expanding its community garden program. Work has recently started on one at Mountain Creek apartments so people can grow their own food. Nonprofits Create Her and Oak Cliff Veggie Project are collaborating on the community gardens as well.
Recently, a new talk-line called Speak up DFW is answering calls for anyone who needs help. People who need more information can go to www.speakupdfw.org.
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This June, the group will also be hosting a ceremony for a memorial dedicated to Fred Rouse, a lynching victim in Fort Worth in the 1920s. Members will collect soil from the site and take it to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.
