Community Powered Revitalization: Community Has No Boundaries

EULESS — There’s a hush in the air as Theresa and I sit for her interview; the kind of warm, buzzing silence that catches you off-guard in the suburbs of the mid-cities. We’re just around the corner from a major road that connects to a bustling highway, but you’d never know it. The hum of traffic is just texture, as easily forgotten as the fading exterior paint that volunteers have labored all day to replace. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. The volunteers are long gone, but you can still feel their presence.

Theresa settles in, alighting on a bench that splits the difference between her freshly painted side of the duplex and her neighbor’s property, which volunteers weren’t allowed to touch up. There’s a line of painters’ tape dividing the house: brown and white, old and new; a temporary band of bright green in the middle. The homeowner sits just inside that line, a reminder that she, too, is in transition.

A longtime resident of North Texas, Theresa still lives in the first home she ever bought. At the time, she was working as a teacher. She eventually left that job to make time to care for her mother. Theresa paid off her mortgage with money she inherited when cancer took her mother away. She still works, but she’s struggling to keep up with bills and taxes. As a member of Cross City Church, she knew all about Community Powered Revitalization. But she didn’t expect to ever need it.

You can hear the strain in her voice as she processes her need, then the overwhelming kindness of others in meeting it.

The CPR program served a total of 30 homeowners in the Spring of 2019. Each of them with their own history and needs, each with their own unique appreciation of the event itself. Even though rain interrupted the two-day restoration blitz, a total of 733 volunteers turned out to help them. Men and women from all over this community, some serving just down the street from their own homes and others making the trek in from their usual stomping grounds near Dallas. A few of them even got the chance to bring the work closer to home.

The Spring event brought CPR to Grapevine for the first time in the history of the program. That addition came with its own unique challenges: older homes and more stringent guidelines in the historical district. But without the benefit of being present for the work, you’d never know the difference between a Grapevine home and one in Bedford.

All across the Mid-Cities, from Hurst to Euless to the northernmost projects in Grapevine, every yard became a picture of community in action. As much as the homeowners found themselves in a marked transition — old to new, distraught to hopeful — the community itself bears no weight of division. Whether you live in one of the four cities served or somewhere else entirely, you’re part of one family. A family that you chose, and that actively chooses you back. A family that demonstrates love and walks together in challenging times.

We’re glad to be part of that. And we hope you’ll continue the trend.