About the Founder & President
About the Founder & President
DONALD R. PARISH, JR.
Donald believes that exposure is the key to unlocking a youth’s potential. In 1999, shortly after graduating from The University of Texas, he began organizing college field trips on a monthly basis, encouraging kids from his old hometown neighborhood of Oak Cliff, Texas to participate. He’s conducted over 20 separate tours of UT’s campus alone and, over the years, completed dozens of trips to other schools across the state. Hundreds of young people have positively benefited from the opportunity to travel outside of their community while also getting the chance to see first-hand what college is like.
<In 2017, Donald was the Site-Based Decision Making President at Dade Middle School in South Dallas. He led the successful organizing efforts for a program called ‘Breakfast with Dads’ where over 600 men from the community showed up to mentor boys without active fathers in their lives. This incredible outpouring of support caught the attention of national media outlets and, more importantly, inspired everyday people to step up and organize similar volunteer efforts in their own neighborhoods. A Steady Hand was established in order to help create a movement out of this special moment and to further engage the male volunteers who wanted to continue investing in the lives of young people.
Recent Press
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Better Living: Sarah Elliott, Development For The Dallas After School Foundation
Source: Click here for Article -
Mayor Eric Johnson, community partners to distribute 5,000 masks donated by The Nancy Lieberman Charities
Source: The Dallas Morning News -
600 Volunteers Answer the Call to Step in for Absentee Dads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hukCxkijnbg&feature=youtu.be Open Link -
Meet the Longhorn Changing Kids’ Lives in South Dallas
Source: The Alcalde (The Official Publication of the Texas Exes) -
‘I want to be great’: Why a Dallas police officer mentors an ambitious Oak Cliff teen
Source: The Dallas Morning News