Charlie Mae Ransom Technology Learning Center

Charlie Mae Ransom has lived in the Roseland Homes community for over 60 years.

Needless to say, Ms. Ransom is an incredible community organizer, protector and leader. No other individual has given more or done as much for her neighborhood as Charlie Mae!

She has served with distinction on the Central Dallas Ministries Board of Directors for several years. In 2005, Ms. Ransom received the Hazel E. Brown Outstanding Community Partner Award, CDM's highest honor.

The work we have been able to do inside and around the Roseland Homes Community, including management of the new Community Life Center, has been made possible by the welcoming leadership of Ms. Ransom. She is a vital part of the CDM family and, thanks to her graciousness, we are a part of her family as well!

Recently, we gathered for the dedication of our new and much improved technology training center. The center has been renamed the Charlie Mae Ransom Technology Learning Center in her honor and for the encouragement of all who will study, learn and grow by being there.

Thanks to a new, working partnership with the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD), the Ransom TLC will be the site for all sorts of technology and life improvement classes, including GED. It will also house CDM WorkPaths, our "hard" skills training classes. We are very grateful to Dr. Wright Lassiter, DCCCD Chancellor, for his role in helping us renew this connection to such a great training resource.

We have operated at this location, thanks to the assistance of the Real Estate Council of Dallas and the Dallas Housing Authority, since 2000. The remodel was necessitated by the heavy volume of participants in our technology education experiences over the past 6 years. Thanks to our staff, the center is like brand new and fit for its new name!

Ms. Ransom put it best with these words that are inscribed beneath a photo of her in the entrance to the learning center:

"Our spirit is fed with love, joy, peace, truth, patience, goodness, and knowledge. We have a profound responsibility to ourselves and our community to fill our spirit by developing ourselves intellectually and emotionally, in large part through education and faith. We must not allow neither law nor circumstance to negatively impact the development of these fruits. Where there is community they are in us and among us, we must work diligently and faithfully to harvest these most precious of God’s gifts."

[Pictured on this post are Ms. Ransom addressing the audience present for the dedication, the CDM Ransom TLC staff and Dr. Lassiter who also inspired us with his words of encouragement.]
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Good news this morning: yesterday the U. S. House of Representatives voted 315 to 116 to raise the national minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 over the next two years! Many of our neighbors will benefit from this long overdue move. The minimum wage level had not been adjusted for a decade.

The U. S. Senate plans to take up the matter before the end of January.

Contact your two Senators today to voice your support for passage of a clean minimum wage adjustment to match the work of the House of Representatives.