Groundwork Dallas is pleased to announce that Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner, Tom Hicks, recently contributed a $50,000 donation to the non-profit.  The generous donation will assist Groundwork Dallas in meeting contractual obligations toward self-sufficiency by FY 2008 as part of the non-profit's agreement with Groundwork USA.  Additionally, the donation allows Groundwork Dallas, the recognized caretaker of the Great Trinity Forest, to springboard solicitation of matching funds. 

Mr. Hicks is owner of Hicks, Inc., which owns and operates Southwest Sports Group, the company that owns the Texas Rangers, the Dallas Stars and the Mesquite Championship Rodeo.  He co-founded investment firm Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst and served as the company's chair from 1989 to 2004, an active period that successfully generated over $12 billion private equity funds raised and $50 billion of leveraged acquisitions.   Mr. Hicks was a catalyst in the creation of one of the most expensive hockey and basketball arenas in US history, the American Airlines Center. This endeavor further solidified Mr. Hicks' worldwide reputation for developing state-of-the-art stadia for his teams.

Mr. Hicks, Groundwork Dallas raises a glass in toast of you.  Thank you so much for this opportunity.  You are among Dallas' great philanthropists. 

 (pictured: Groundwork Dallas Board President, Steve Smith, at left, with Mr. Hicks)

In 2007, with the help of two funding grants from REI and Rockwell Collins, Groundwork Dallas successfully launched its first Green Team. The Green Team is an initiative to engage youth from the Gateway Communities of the Great Trinity Forest by providing them jobs and training in environmental sciences and outdoor recreation.  What better way to introduce these young people to our great natural resources than by exposing them to opportunities in their own backyard?  The students participated in after school classroom training such as GPS mapping, introduction to trail building tools, trash study, tree planting, gardening, trail tour guiding, and camping planning.  In addition, the students were provided with some basic life skills training, such as personal finance management, job interviewing and conflict resolution, as well as introduction to various career opportunities in the field.  During field work days, the students participated in a number of activities, including working in the community garden at the Larry Johnson Recreation Center, planting trees, aquatic wetland plant restoration at Rochester Park, trail cleanups, tour guiding on the Gateway Trail, and a neighborhood park cleanup in the Parkdale community with the Americorps Team and Parkdale volunteers.  All of the projects were geared toward expanding the students' knowledge, skill base and social interactions, by providing them with a chance to get outside of their own community and work with others.  Not to mention that they really appreciated their paychecks!  We would like to continue the Green Team and expand it so that we can give the students proper training to learn how to build trails, and use them as our trailbuilding workforce as we expand.  This is the beginning of creating a skilled and knowledgeable future workforce for maintaining all of the recreational amenities on the ground now- it's our "organic" version of sustainable and empowered economic development in our communities.  As always, funding is a major factor for all of our projects and programs, and we continue to apply for grants and raise funds via corporate sponsors and campaigns.  We would love to see three Green teams in 2008- one each for the Spring, Summer and Fall.

If you are interested in lending your special expertise to the Green Team Committee by serving on this ad hoc committee, please contact Casie Pierce at 214-269-5692 or email her at groundworkdallas@yahoo.com.

(pictured: Green Team planting aquatic plants in the pond at Rochester Park)

 

2007 saw our second Americorps team.  These young adults were here in Dallas for eight weeks between September and November and they began work on a new trail from Devon Anderson Park.  This trail will link to the Gateway Trail via the Piedmont Bluff Trail to the north, and will lead into the Comanche Storytelling Place further south.  This trail is not quite complete, as the team also built a bridge over a chasm and unfortunately had to stop at that point due to a mysterious tire dump encountered on the other side.  We're busy fleshing out some creative ideas for getting those removed during an upcoming cleanup.  Stay tuned for details.  In the meantime, go out and hike this trail, it is a very beautiful trail and offers some really impressive ecosystem and Dallas skyline photo ops.  We thank our young people who feel called to serve the Americorps and we could not have gotten as far as we have without our Americorps teams.  We are applying for another team this year and hopefully they and the Green Team can work together, as they serve as terrific role models for the Green Team kids.

(pictured: Americorps Team demonstrating trail training tools to the Green Team)