Howdy, y’all! Our incredible visit to Boston was scheduled to be followed by a stop in the Big D! The sprawling metropolis of Dallas, Texas is home to two of our Kindness in Community Fund nonprofits, Café Momentum and Girls Embracing Mothers.
Our team was so eager to meet the leadership and communities served by each organization, however, Mother Nature had other plans in mind. Dallas experienced record-breaking, torrential rainfall early this week, and unfortunately, both organizations were impacted by the weather.
We plan to touch down in Dallas in the near future, and in the meantime, we would love to share about the incredible work of our two Kindness in Community Fund recipients!
Café Momentum’s mission is to transform young lives by equipping the Dallas community’s most at-risk youth with life skills, education and employment opportunities to help them achieve their full potential. They work alongside the Juvenile Justice Department and strive to teach youth that it is possible to break the cycle of incarceration and violence. Café Momentum focuses on creating environments for youth, ages 15-19, where they can gain self-confidence and learn marketable skills to ensure a more successful future.
We hope to soon visit Café Momentum’s nonprofit restaurant that provides a 12-month paid internship program for justice-involved youth. Along with addressing basic urgent needs for every young person in their program, Café Momentum provides interns with the opportunity to work their way through all areas of the restaurant, learning legal employment, social skills and life skills. There is also access to financial education, parenting classes, educational assistance and career exploration. After the 12 months of curriculum, successful interns are able to graduate from the program and are placed in a job with a community partner in the Dallas area.
We look forward to meeting Girls Embracing Mothers (GEM) in person soon. Their mission involves empowering girls, K-12, with mothers in prison to break the cycle of incarceration and lead successful lives with vision and purpose. GEM partners with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and works to lessen the impact of maternal separation in the prison system. They work to create intergenerational healing of girls with incarcerated mothers, and they aim to strengthen the mother-daughter relationship through enhanced prison visitation sessions, which include workshops, facilitated discussions and art workshops. GEM also runs a camp in the summertime which encourages connection and support, where approximately 20 girls come together, all of whom have mothers who are currently or recently incarcerated.
Please check out ways to support Café Momentum and Girls Embracing Mothers, and we hope all North Texas residents affected by the recent, historic rainfall are as safe and dry as possible. Sending love to everyone!
Up next…Atlanta, Georgia!
