February 9, 2019 – Dallas Morning News – Sara Coello
More than 1,300 donors contributed to the annual Dallas Morning News Charities drive this year, bringing in around $1.13 million to help North Texas’ homeless and hungry.
The 32nd annual campaign benefits 20 area charities, each dedicated to serving the homeless and low-income in Dallas and surrounding areas.
“It really makes me proud to be part of the company,” said Grant Moise, publisher of The Dallas Morning News. “Our goal is to just keep finding ways to improve and increase the ways that we can give back to the community.”
Since 1986, DMN Charities has raised over $32 million for local nonprofits. The campaign covers administrative costs so that charities receive every cent donated.
DMN Charities kicked off the campaign in November by distributing checks totaling over $363,000 to the charities. NFL Hall-of-Famer Tim Brown was this year’s honorary campaign chairman.
“I just continue to be amazed by how supportive folks in our community are of people in need,” said Leona Allen, chairwoman of the Dallas Morning News Charities and member of The News‘ editorial board. “We ask them to help, and they come through every year.”
This year’s fundraising total came in under the campaign’s $1.5 million goal and is slightly below last year’s $1.25 millionraised, but the money will still make a significant difference for the participating agencies, Allen said.
Now in its 75th year, Brother Bill’s Helping Hand in Dallas is seeing an increase in clientele, with over 8,000 visitors to the community clinic in 2018 and more than 300 families coming for food each week last year.
Though the nonprofit offers classes, camps and short-term programs to neighbors, it plans to use the money it receives from DMN Charities to fortify the clinic and grocery store.
“By the time we see [a patient] for the first time in our clinic, we have a triage situation,” executive director Wes Keyes said.
The clinic, which costs more than $300,000 a year to run, is booked through June. The agency’s DMN Charities contribution will go toward medical supplies and lab fees and will help ensure that patients get healthy food from the grocery store to offset the problems that the clinic sees most often, like diabetes, hypertension and chronic illnesses.
“If you can imagine coming into West Dallas and you cannot afford health care, you cannot afford to get insurance, you haven’t seen the doctor in five, 10, 15 years,” Keyes said. “On top of that … having to make food choices, whether [clients] are going to be full or they’re going to eat right?”
To offer a holistic solution, Brother Bill’s has a grocery store stocked with fresh produce and protein, sourced primarily from another DMN Charities recipient: the North Texas Food Bank.
The food bank recently moved into a new Plano location with state-of-the-art refrigeration and shipping facilities designed to allow more consistent delivery of fresh, nutritious food to other distribution centers around North Texas.
Money from DMN Charities will go straight to the nonprofit’s Food 4 Kids program, which serves 11,000 students who rely on subsidized school lunches by sending them home on weekends with backpacks full of nutritious, kid-friendly food.
“It’s a very critical program, these kids are going home to empty pantries,” spokeswoman Anna Kurian said. “We are very glad to be able to focus on the kids.”
2018-19 DMN Charities recipients
Family Gateway
Shelter and supportive housing programs for children and families affected by homelessness with wrap-around services including case management, adult and children’s services and an education program.
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