FOREST THEATER CULTURE of DeSoto. We learned this is a partnership event hosted by the church and run by a non-profit, Yoga N Da Hood. Yoga N Da Hood has an unapologetic focus on women of color and has more than 12,000 followers on Instagram. Urban League Event Our team attended an event hosted by the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of Urban League to better understand how to engage young black working professionals. Urban League is one of the largest and oldest communitybased movements working to empower the Black community to enter the economic and social mainstream. The young professionals auxiliary within Urban League’s is specifically focused on Black working professionals ages 21-40. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex chapter engages 320+ active members of this demographic. Cafe Models To help envision what a morning-focused business at the Forest Theater might look like, we visited a number of different examples around Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for inspiration. This included Mudsmith, Mokah Coffee and Tea, Civil Pour, and La La Land
Team at LaLaLand Kind Cafe (photo by: Cole Suttle) 30
Kind Cafe. La La Land Kind Cafe stuck out to us because it is a cafe with a purpose to help youth who have recently aged out of the foster care system with job training, and is an existing partner of CitySquare. Mokah is also unique for several reasons. The patrons of the coffee shop highly diverse compared to other coffee shops we visited. Secondly, Mokah is attached to a flexible space used a gallery, church, and event space; which better mirrors what might happen at the Forest Theater than other cafe models. TREC We attended a conference hosted by The Real Estate Council (TREC) on equitable community development. TREC’s mission is to “cultivate relationships in the commercial real estate industry to catalyze community investment, influence policy, propel careers, and develop the leaders of tomorrow.”29 They are also the aforementioned organization responsible for Catalyst Grants. We learned from other communities who are in the process of developing about ways to guard against the negative impacts of gentrification, like displacing long-time residents or driving out businesses. There are options that include ear-marking jobs for local residents, writing restrictions into the contracts, and establishing community boards. Surveys A survey is a great tool for exploring needs, thoughts, and attitudes across a sample of a target population. As a means of discovery, a survey is an advantageous method when there is a need for high-volume data in a short period of time. Our team utilized a two pronged approach to collecting survey data: digital and analogue.