Letter from the President - Leader Newsletter November 2011

The Dallas Foundation is always ready for a challenge, and this year, we gave ourselves a big one. At the end of the hottest summer on record, we packed up our offices and moved to the Reagan Place building at Old Parkland in Oak Lawn.

We’ve been giving our new home a workout. We hosted a luncheon featuring F. Scott McCown, executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, on September 13. (You’ll find a summary of his remarks later in this letter.) Then we held an event for donors about nurturing family health and family wealth, with Kevin Rogers of BNY Mellon Wealth Management. We’ll sponsor more gatherings this fall, but don’t wait for the next event to see our new surroundings – please stop by anytime for a tour.

Even before you visit, I want to introduce two new staff members who joined us in the middle of our move. Heather Frost is our new scholarships associate. A native of Sacramento, Calif., she has a degree in French and has taught English in France and South Korea. Paula Newman, our new office manager, previously worked in the education department at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. A Garland native, she enjoys creative writing.

Now that we’ve introduced our new home and our new people, we’ll use the remainder of this newsletter to talk about our work. In this edition, you’ll read about our major new collaborative, called “The Big Fix for Big D,” to help lower the number of animals euthanized at local shelters. We’ll also update you on our Emergency Heat Relief Fund, which helps low-income Dallas County residents cope with summer. And we’ll tell you about our Giving for Good gift card program, which makes charitable giving easy and fun.

As always, if you have questions about anything in our newsletter, please call or email us.

With best wishes,

Mary M. Jalonick