Celebrating Serve Denton’s Birthday is a Celebration of a Stronger Community
Celebrating a birthday isn’t about celebrating a certain day. It’s about celebrating an entire life.
A celebration of where one has come from, all that has been accomplished, and the joyful hope of what’s to come … a celebration of growth.
This month, on February 9th to be exact, Serve Denton celebrates turning 9 years old (and the vision that was birthed nearly 40 years ago).
A home-grown dream in Denton County
Denton has always been a community full of people who care about their neighbors – it’s what makes Denton one of the best communities to be a part of. People from all walks of life linking hands and supporting each other as we would their own family.
It was people like this who originally dreamt the idea of a health and human service center, such as Serve Denton, over 40 years ago. And in the last 10 years, that dream has become a reality.
The idea of having a unified place where people in need could receive help initially began back in 1976 with the City Council member and mayor, Elinor Hughes. With a background in social work and a passion for people, she saw the gaping need to help the struggling families who had been ignored for decades. With a commission of local leaders, the idea of a one-stop-shop for humanity was proposed, but was never able to take flight.
A few years later, in 2001, a group of community leaders formed a nonprofit called Denton Assistance Center, Inc. in the hopes of resurrecting this idea. we raised some funding but were not able to find a building or the necessary support.
Eventually, the organization went dormant … but the dream remained stronger than ever.
In 2011, this dream was resurrected through Denton Bible Church (DBC), and a team composed of Pat Smith, Priscilla Sanders and Gary Henderson. We met with the remaining members of the Denton Assistance Center, Inc. met and agreed to transfer the 501(c)3 to the new group.
DBC wanted to maximize their resources in a way that would be a game-changer for the community, yet had the wisdom to know that Rome wasn’t built in a day.
But little did we know how much of a game-changer Serve Denton would be...
Having a long term perspective and beginning with the end in mind, both Denton Bible Church and Serve Denton played the long game from the very beginning. We knew in order to Serve Denton to be successful, we would need a marathon mentality rather than a sprint to the finish line, and began with the end in mind.
It would take 4 decades, 3 planned attempts, and 3 various entities to get to the point of initiating Serve Denton.
But why?
One word: patience.
Supporting struggling families is not (and cannot) be a quick band-aid fix. Supporting struggling families takes time, resources, and endurance. It takes a mindset that you are in it for the long-haul, come what may.
30 years in, multiple people had bought into the idea of this one-stop-shop for humanity. But it was the dedication to the empowerment of the community that gave this dream flight.
The adversity and trials seemed insurmountable, but Serve Denton eventually overcame.
The dream that overcame obstacles
Getting various local nonprofits and ministries under one roof presented many obstacles.
For one, with limited funding and capacity, many of the entities were cobbled together to make-due. Trying to make ends meet, and be able to provide services to community members, there wasn’t much investment in the actual properties.
Secondly, finding a property adequate enough to host a variety of agencies providing a variety of services was easier said than done.
But the Serve Denton team did what we do best – we helped raise the capital, improve functions and improve the overall quality of life. After all, Serve Denton is nothing but a series of failures that we’ve learned from and improved. At Serve Denton, failure is just the “First Attempt In Learning”.
Getting started
Serve Denton’s first board meeting was on Feb 9, 2012, the same day we officially became a 501(c)3.
It took a year and a half to sign a lease with Denton Bible Church for the Mill to begin colocating nonprofits and for the Wheeler House on Elm Street house for homeless moms and kids.
But once we did, it was proof we could start doing real work!
At the Mill, we renovated the second floor and moved in the first two agencies on April 1st, 2014: Big Brothers Big Sisters and Rising Star. Then we added more partners about every 2-3 months.
In 2016, we realized that we needed to find our own property. No one would give us a large sum of money if we were leasing, which hindered future plans to grow.
Denton Calvary Academy bought the property from Denton Bible Church and terminated our lease in January 2017. We closed on our current building on Loop 288 on September 1 of the same year and began renovations.
Phase 1 finished in 2018 and our partners moved in. Thanks to Serve Denton being one of two recipients of New Market Tax Credits in Texas, Phases 2-4 — which house Health Services of North Texas, Children’s Advocacy Center for Denton County, and Denton Community Food Center — was completed in January 2020, just before the global pandemic hit.
The way ahead
Some of our partners look back now on what we did in light of the pandemic and say there's no way they would have been able to survive without Serve Denton.
Denton Community Food Center would have closed their doors because it was not able to answer the demand at their old location.
Health Services of North Texas has been receiving just under 1,000 calls every day.
All of our office space is currently full. Some offices are doubled up on desks because our partners have brought on more staff members to meet the needs of the community.
As of right now, Serve Denton is planning to increase the food center by an additional 50% and adding additional offices and special programmatic spaces for vocational education in just a few years.
The past four years have been paving the lanes for people. You need the track and the people to run in the lane.
The next four years is running the train and growing to meet more needs and help more nonprofits to what they do best.
That’s why we need to wrap up our Capital Campaign this year. We need to expand to meet the needs that we know are coming and that are already here. And we can’t move forward without finishing what we’ve started.
When we look back on how far we’ve come, we recount the faithfulness of the people who have made this possible and the victories we have had along the way. It builds our hope for the future because we are reminded of what has already been accomplished and how we overcame obstacles that seemed insurmountable.
There are many challenges that still feel insurmountable, but we know when we come together as a community, we can do anything.
We’ve seen it happen.
Nonprofits are now saying Serve Denton has been a game-changer for them - the dream made a reality.
A dream that first arose in our community 40 years ago has come true. And now it’s time to expand our imaginations, dream of more, and make it a reality so more nonprofits thrive and more people find the help they desperately need.