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Happy 100th Birthday, Elmwood!

Welcome to the first of our monthly(ish) feature spotlighting one of our member neighborhoods. Today, we focus on Elmwood, fresh from celebrating its 100th birthday. 

Elmwood is situated in the center of Oak Cliff. Originally the old Tennessee Dairy Farm, this neighborhood is now 1,500 Tudor homes and cottages, a downtown district with pizza and coffee shops, and a 16-acre greenbelt dedicated in 1945 as a City of Dallas linear park. More than that, Elmwood is a tight-knit community that hosts a variety of events that support local businesses and create more opportunities for neighbors to just hang out together.

HOC Neighborhood Rep Elizabeth Mellott was able to experience Elmwood in a unique way. After living there for 10 years, she moved away for 5, but, "didn't know a single neighbor and moved right back." To Elizabeth, a few key advantages of living in this neighborhood are the green space (creeks and parks), the growing downtown area and Oak Cliff Brewery at Tyler Station. She's also proud of all the events, including Music in the Meadow in the spring and cookie decorationg and the cake walk in the fall. And she had to point out that Elmwood had the first dog park in Oak Cliff (thanks to partial funding by HOC).

She also loves Elmwood Farm, especially now that it has moved to a better space. They sell local eggs, offer produce in season and have their own events, like Music Passing Through.

For more on the history of this neighborhood, check out the Elmwood page on this website. For more on its 100th birthday, look at this article in the Advocate.



Coombs Creek Trail Extension Celebration April 11th



8 Member Neighborhoods Got the Scoop

We had a nice turnout at the 2025 HOC Grant Application Workshop; Eight member neighborhood representatives attended and participated in our very interactive session. The happy people in this photo now know how to properly fill out the grant applications to ensure they go through the process without a hitch, increasing their chances for getting HOC grant funds to make their projects happen.

If you weren't able to attend and you have some questions, please contact our VP of Grants, Ron Veech, at vpgrants@heritageoakcliff.org.

And if you need to download the 2025 Grant Application and Grant Program Guide (as well as the PowerPoint presentation from the workshop), download here

Thank you for all you do to keep this program going year after year!

And congrats to all our future potential grant recipients!




Help Preserve Coombs Creek

One of the goals we all share it to preserve Coombs Creek as a greenbelt. You can help by joining our neighborhood partners – the Coombs Creek Conservatory and Twelve Hills Nature Center – for Creek Meet 2025. This creekside discussion will be held on April 5th at 11:00 am at:

Stevens Park Stone Pavilion

1726 W. Colorado Blvd.

You'll be able to connect with others, grow your knowledge and help ensure the health of this local treasure. A light lunch will be provided, so please RSVP here to reserve your spot (and your lunch). For more information about this event, click here. And thanks for your help.



"Massive Turnout! Gorgeous Day! So Many Smiles!"

The 2025 Oak Cliff Mardi Gras parade March 2nd was a huge success and was the biggest parade in recent years. One HOC Executive Committee member told us, "we threw out more than 30 gross of beads! Our arms were getting tired!" An HOC Board Member said, "I just loved seeing my neighbors enjoying the parade so much."

The HOC float – a retro green Ford pickup decked out with four HOC Mardi Gras flags – was a crowd favorite. We had a great group of 15 volunteers, all wearing their free matching Mardi Gras long-sleeve shirts, that represented our organization well and had more fun than the onlookers. 

Much thanks to Trudy Newton, T.J. Edmond and Ron Veech for putting a lot of this together, George Roberts for the Ford pickup and Brian Gross for the flag and shirt designs. If you'd like to see a lot of great photos showing a lot of people having a lot of fun, click here

Hope you can join us next year!


We Celebrated 2024 With Style!

The 2024 Heritage Oak Cliff Holiday Celebration held on December 5th was simply AWESOME! 47 people really enjoyed the evening; hopefully, you were one of them. The food was fabulous; everyone raved about how delicious it was. The raffle prizes were over the top, including two tickets and a parking pass to the Byron Nelson Golf Tournament (donated by Brad Perry of Schwab) and a $619 Platinum Pass to Snap Clean Car Wash (donated by City Councilman Chad West). $730 was raised just from additional ticket sales for the raffle. One company, Creative Planning, didn’t have anything for the raffle, so they donated $1,000 to HOC (thank you to Ed Brownstein and Christy Watson)!

The Oak Cliff Assembly space was as tasty as the food – great layout and beautiful decorations. Thank you AJ Rambler and Proxy Property for allowing HOC to use the venue.

During the event, the following special people were recognized: 1.) Ryan Stepp received the 2024 Neighborhood Champion award for his outstanding work on the super successful 2024 Home Tour. 2.) Cynthia Michaels received the Executive Board Champion award for her willingness to go go the extra mile leading events and managing the grant program. And 3.) AJ Rambler and Proxy Property received the 2024 Ruth Chenoweth award for their significant role in the restoration of properties in Oak Cliff.

If you’d like to see more photos from our year-end celebration, check out the photo album here (photos by 2nd2Nunn Photography).

All of us at HOC thank all of you for giving us a year worth celebrating. What amazing things will we do together in 2025?


The 2024 Home Tour Was a Home Run!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 2024 Heritage Oak Cliff Fall Home Tour – the homeowners, sponsors, advertisers, volunteers and everyone attended. Because of you, we had the most successful tour event ever!

     • Close to 800 people attended

     • Net raised for 2025 HOC grants: about $42,000

     • Number of guests at our first-ever Patron Party: about 75

How successful was this home tour? We ran out of brochures and needed to print off tour maps. (Thanks to everyone for being so understanding; we'll be better prepared next year.)

Here are just a few of the many, many positive comments we received:

"We've taken about 15 home tours in the Dallas area and today's HOC home tour was the best."

"The homes were full of character, quite beautiful and very unique."

"The AIA tours are too modern and the White Rock Lake tours are impossibly crowded. Heritage Oak Cliff has it all."

Thanks, again, everyone—we'll see you next year! (And thanks to 2nd2Nunn Photography for the photos above. To look through all the photos, just click here.)


Giving Day Results, Giving Day Appreciation

To all our HOC members, family and friends, thank you for making our Giving Day!

We reached 79% of our $10,000 goal – $7,866 – with the donations broken down as follows:

    • 42 Individual Donors: $2,866
    • Ray Scott (State Farm) Matching Funds: $2,500
    • Mike Matthews (HOC) Matching Funds: $2,500

In addition to funds from our NTX Giving Day campaign, we've also received:

    • $1,800 from 16 donors in April through the Communities Foundation of Texas
    • $2,000 from a private family foundation

We can't thank you enough for all your support, and we look forward to future grants going towards neighborhood improvements, beautification, events and more. HOC Fundraising Chair Mike Matthews (and matching donor) was overjoyed with the results. “I thank everyone" he said, "for their charitable contributions that encourage HOC to move forward with initiatives to help Oak Cliff neighborhoods.”

The Giving Day Celebration

The Giving Day celebration at La Calle Doce Restaurante was also a success. 21 donors from Brentwood, Brettonwoods, Kiest Forest, North Cliff, Stevens Park Village and Wynnewood North celebrated the results and had a lot of fun doing so.

You Can Still Give

Although NTX Giving Day has come and gone, donations are still being accepted. So if you want to give local, you still can. Just click below to go to our page on the NTX Giving Day website.

Thank you again!


2024 HOC Grant Awards Recipients

The 2024 HOC Grant Awards Celebration held on June 27th was a big success, and not only for the grant recipients. Overheard comments from some of the 37 guests (not made up by the writer of this article) include: "Wow!" "Fabulous food!" "Knocked it out of the park!" "So much positive energy and laughter!" "Truly a magical evening!" "The best HOC party I've been to in a while – or ever!"

Congratulations to all ten neighborhood association recipients, and many thanks to our VP of Grants, Cynthia Michaels (shown handing out the awards above – if you want to see more photos of the event – including the food – click here).

Curious about the results? Out of 34 grant applications submitted and reviewed, 30 were approved. All ten neighborhoods that applied will receive grant funds, totaling $24,042! Here's the neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakdown:

    • Beckley Club Estates: $554
    • Brettonwoods: $1,154
    • Elmwood: $469
    • El Tivoli: $1,098
    • Kiestwood: $811
    • Stevens Park Estates: $1,680
    • Stevens Park Village: $5,787
    • West Kessler: $1,177
    • Winnetka Heights: $3,000
    • Wynnewood North: $8,312

We look forward to seeing all the improvements and attending all the events funded by HOC grants in the coming months. We also look forward to your grant applications for 2025, so start thinking and planning now. How can we help you?

Missed the awards celebration? Click below to view the PowerPoints shown at the celebration.




What a success!!

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for the Fall Home Tour and a big thank you to all of our amazing homeowners who opened their doors to us and all of the wonderful house sponsors, advertisers, and partners of the event! The proceeds from the tour have been distributed in the form of grants to help neighborhoods across Oak Cliff!

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Heritage Oak Cliff Mission Statement

Our mission is to preserve and enhance the architectural, historic and cultural heritage of Oak Cliff, as well as its natural resources, through direct action and public education. We will support our neighborhoods through assistance, grants and training, serving as an umbrella organization that unifies the community for greater advocacy and representation with the City of Dallas. We will promote communication and cooperation between and among organizations and community groups, in order to increase their effectiveness in addressing issues affecting Oak Cliff. It is also our mission to promote Oak Cliff to the wider community as an exceptional place to live.


Heritage Oak Cliff Equity Statement

Heritage Oak Cliff (HOC) champions equity, diversity, and inclusion by providing training, services, and grants to member neighborhoods, and by helping under-resourced and underserved neighborhoods reach their full potential.

CONTACT US - You can message any of our Executive Committee Members by clicking on their name on at About Us page which shows their email address. Board Members and General Members can be found via the Membership Directory.

Mailing Address:

Heritage Oak Cliff

P.O. Box 4027
Dallas, Texas  75208
email: heritageoakcliff@heritageoakcliff.org

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