| The Center for Public Service at the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton, Texas, will receive a Community Outreach Partnership Centers (COPC) New Directions grant of $150,000 to build on the outreach partnerships created by an earlier COPC grant. It will target its efforts to two distressed neighborhoods in Denton, linking these efforts to other initiatives underway at the city government, the United Way of Denton County, the Denton Affordable Housing Corporation, and the Denton Housing Authority. In addition, the project will begin to establish a satellite office for the Center for Public Service at the new UNT South Dallas Campus.
UNT's partners in these neighborhoods include the Owsley Community School, the Martin Luther King Recreation Center, the Denton Family Resource Center, Habitat for Humanity, civic groups such as LULAC and the NAACP, and active neighborhood associations such as NICE and SEDNA. The activities to be undertaken include: training for home-based child care providers in the target areas; expanding community music and arts education; expanding and improving afterschool programs and mentoring programs for youth; expanding skill-training programs such as a sewing program and computer training for adults; and improving access to college courses at the Martin Luther King Center.
Through its COPC, UNT will also continue to support the Affordable Housing Coalition, recruit student volunteer participation in housing construction and repair, support the community planning process for both target areas, provide leadership training for neighborhood residents, and conduct community revitalization workshops for neighborhood groups and practitioners. At the South Dallas Campus, it will focus on mentoring disadvantaged youths.
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