Frazier Revitalization Inc. Programs

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

In the end, any neighborhood is only as strong as its people. If neighbors don’t trust one another and work together, negative forces will inevitably tear down the community. If residents don’t have high expectations both of themselves and of the public agencies that provide services, things will fall apart.

In partnership with residents, business owners and neighborhood-based organizations, FRI works to improve the quality of life and enhance the community’s ability to create the future it deserves.

Frazier Neighborhood Initiative
People are the heart of any neighborhood, and Frazier is blessed with many talented and dedicated residents who work tirelessly to make it safe, strong and stable. For too long, however, they have worked largely in isolation – from each other and from the institutions outside the community that have the capacity and/or the duty to help.

Through the Frazier Neighborhood Initiative (FNI), FRI is bringing together residents, neighborhood associations, crime watch groups, schools, police, community prosecutors and others with a stake in Frazier’s future to fight crime and blight and keep the neighborhood’s youth from falling prey to negative influences.

FNI is all about “doing with” rather than “doing for.” At every level, from training adults to effectively wage war on drug dealers, gangs and businesses that cater to criminal elements, to giving kids productive ways to spend their after-school hours, FNI works to make people stronger, more responsible and more self-sufficient.

Dunbar School Partnership
FRI has selected Paul L. Dunbar Learning Center as the site of a pilot program that will bring together groups from inside and outside the community to collaborate on improving academic performance. The overarching goal is to give not just students but their families the support and skills they need for the students to succeed in school and resist negative influences. We aim to demonstrate that, by working together according to a carefully designed strategy with strengthening families at its core, the groups that want to help can achieve far greater results than they can laboring in isolation from one another. If we succeed, we hope to replicate the program at other schools in Frazier.

Youth Entrepreneurship Lab
In partnership with J.O.Y. Foods and Project Still I Rise, FRI is bringing the fundamentals of entrepreneurship home to Frazier by opening a neighborhood pizza restaurant staffed and managed – with strong adult supervision – by local youth.  Kids who participate will learn the ropes of creating and running a business from one of Dallas’ outstanding African-American entrepreneurs, Joy Wallace, the founder, president and CEO of J.O.Y. Foods. In addition to her chops as an entrepreneur, Ms. Wallace brings many years of strategic and managerial experience with corporations such as Pizza Hut, Pilgrim’s Pride and Uncle Ben’s.

Youth who complete the program will receive three certifications that will help them not only work in the food service industry but get on the path to owning and operating their own restaurants. Through her relationships with leaders in national restaurant franchises, Joy Wallace expects to make the entrepreneurship lab the first rung on a ladder of economic empowerment that has national scope and reach.

Unify South Dallas

• The neighborhood is named for African-American educator Julia C. Frazier.

• It encompasses 1,128 acres.

• It measures 1.8 miles (at its widest) by 1.1 miles.

• It is strategically located roughly 2 miles from downtown Dallas.

• The DART station at Scyene and Hatcher will open in December 2010.

• Poverty is extensive, with median incomes in various census tracts ranging from $12,685 to $17,768.

• The population is relatively young, with median ages in various census tracts ranging from 26.8 to 38.8 years.

• The population is declining (6,484 persons in the 2000 census).

• 91% of residents are African-American (2000 census).

• 8% of residents are Hispanic (2000 census).

• Assets include White Rock Creek, Fair Park (including the African American Museum and the Women’s Museum), the South Dallas Cultural Center, the Juanita Craft Civil Rights Museum and the Juanita Craft Recreation Center (soon to reopen as a diabetes research and treatment center).

DOWNLOAD FAQ >>