Press Release: CitySquare wins state award!

CitySquare Receives Governor’s Volunteer Award for Community Leadership for Its Food on the Move Program

Dallas, TX. August 5, 2013 --- The 30^th Annual Governor’s Volunteer Awards have been announced with CitySquare being named as a recipient in the Community Leadership category. These awards allow the State of Texas to recognize individuals, organizations, corporations and public entities that truly embody the Texas tradition of community service.  The Community Leadership category recognizes an individual, group or organization for strengthening their community through outstanding partnerships, service and volunteerism. Community Leaders understand the importance of service and develop connections between groups and individuals to help them craft collaborative solutions to local needs. They exhibit a dedication to their communities that inspires those around them to serve.

Food on the Move provides over one million meals in a mobile feeding program targeting youth at low-income apartment sites, churches, nonprofits, and summer camps.  Funding for the food comes through the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program. Food on the Move takes a stand against childhood hunger statewide, offering mobile feeding programs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. Through an innovative collaboration with AmeriCorps, the program has delivered meals and provided enrichment to thousands of children. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has hailed Food on the Move “a model for the rest of the nation.”

“Both the kids we serve and our AmeriCorps members benefit from Food on the Move,” says Dr. Keven Vicknair, Director of the Food on the Move and AmeriCorps programs at CitySquare, “We are proud to be recognized with the Community Leadership Award especially for a program that is helping to shape young people into community leaders.”

All of the awardees will be honored on September 11^th at a private dinner with OneStar Foundation board members and other dignitaries at the Renaissance Austin Hotel in Austin. In addition, awardees will be recognized throughout the Texas Nonprofit Summit on September 12th and 13th 2013.

CitySquare is one of the largest, most effective faith-based organizations in North Texas, operating a network of services and programs focused on fighting poverty through hunger relief, health care, housing and hope. CitySquare is the third largest summer food sponsor in the state of Texas.  A United Way agency, CitySquare is ranked a 4-star charity by Charity Navigator with more than 92% of revenue going directly to its programs.

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For more information about the event and the work of CitySquare, please contact: Katherine Allen at 214.303.2146, kallen@CitySquare.org  or Lou Ann York at 214.343.1599, lapub@sbcglobal.net .

Dallas Business Journal spotlights new "Opportunity Center"

CitySquare celebrates construction launch
Dallas Business Journal by Bill Hethcock, Staff Writer
Date: Wednesday, January 25, 2012, 1:31pm CST

Construction is under way on the $12.5 million CitySquare Opportunity Center at the southeast corner of Interstate 30 and Malcolm X Blvd. in Dallas.

Public officials including Mayor Mike Rawlings and other project supporters will get a bus tour of the site at a breakfast Thursday to celebrate the start of construction.

The 52,000-square-foot campus will include a food distribution center; a teaching and production kitchen; a wellness center; and a large employment training center that will house new offices for Workforce Solutions of Greater Dallas and CitySquare’s WorkPaths employment training department. The center also will house the AmeriCorps headquarters/offices and a staging area for a summer and after-school lunch program funded by the Texas Department of Agriculture.
The services are all under one roof with easy access by Dallas Area Rapid Transit Dallas Area Rapid Transit.

The opportunity center, scheduled to open in 2013, will serve low-income residents of East and South Dallas. The center has been a dream of CitySquare’s President and CEO Larry James, a longtime leader in efforts to end poverty in the heart of Dallas.

"The opportunity center will create both enhanced synergy among a vital group of nonprofit partners and convenience of access for the neighbors who come to us seeking to take positive, proactive steps toward a better, more stable life for themselves and their families," James said.

About half of the $12.5 million in development funds for the facility has already been raised, and a public fund-raising campaign is under way.

Omniplan provided the architectural design and Con-Real serves as general contractor for the Opportunity Center.

Bill covers health care, law, education and nonprofits.

Food on the Move

We received the drawing above from a child involved in our "Food on the Move" initiative this summer.  You'll also see a thank you letter from this child's mother. 

Partnering with the Texas Department of Agriculture through our Nurture, Knowledge and Nutrition (N,K,N) team, our AmeriCorps team and our for-profit allies at PepsiCo, we delivered thousands of meals to eligible children living all across Dallas. 

Theresa Cissell, Program Specialist for our AmeriCorps team sent the drawing and the letter my way with the following commentary:

I thought you might enjoy the letter (an accompanying drawing) we got from one of the parents at a Food on the Move site. I think it shows that this program is about more than lunches!
 
Here are some stats for the summer that I sent to the amazing AmeriCorps members that made it through the summer, and with smiles on their faces.


We started the summer with 53 dedicated AmeriCorps members & 9 mobile routes.


You made it through 40 days of triple digit temperatures & 23,943 hours of service.

And together, this is what you achieved:  1,136 children received the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award & 279,551 meals were served to kids.

The Food on the Move effort does not take into account the meals delivered through N,K,N to well over 100 program sites across Dallas.  We'll have those numbers to add to this report later.  Combined we served well over 500,000 meals to low-income children during the summer school break.
Great work in the midst of recording breaking summer in terms of both temperature and community service!

"Food for Good"

Central Dallas Ministries has enjoyed a great partnership with PepsiCo's "Food for Good" initiative for a second summer.  Last year we partnered in a mobile lunch delivery effort with PepsiCo.  This summer we rolled out a fully developed mobile delivery strategy in Dallas, while PepsiCo replicated the pilot program in Chicago with Catholic Charities as a partner. 

The whole deal is way beyond cool and exciting! 

Here's the report as we close in on the last three weeks of the joint effort that linked CDM's AmeriCorps team, PepsiCo and the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

• The summer feeding program created 100 summer jobs and has now served more than 200,000 meals in Dallas, Texas across 10 routes with 3 weeks to go!

• We kicked off a mobile summer feeding program in Chicago on July 12 that has served more than 10,000 meals across 2 routes.

• We have 6 farm stands up and running in Dallas that, in just a few weeks, have profitably provided more than 20,000 servings of fruits & vegetables and valuable business skills to 30+ volunteers.

• The students at Paul Quinn College here in Dallas continue to run a fully operational urban farm, including harvesting and selling more than 100 pounds (!) of fruits & vegetables last week.

More details to come.  We're making very significant progress!

Food on the Move: Summer Lunch Program

The images in the video below sum up "Food on the Move," a partnership effort of Central Dallas Ministries (CDM), the CDM AmeriCorps team, the Texas Department of Agriculture and PepsiCo's "Food for Good" initiative.

Hundreds of thousands of meals will have been served to low-income children by the end of the program in August. Here's where we are through July 28:  201,124 meals served to 7,924 unduplicated children and youth through the joint-effort, mobile feeding program. 

The effort is one of a kind, a new national model of food delivery, as well as a new kind of partnership involving a local non-profit, two publically funded programs and a major, international corporation.

Amazing encouragement to children, their families, our AmeriCorps members, and the drivers and volunteers from PepsiCo.

What a great summer we've had!