Shalondria Galimore of the Melissa Pierce Project and City Councilman Adam Bazaldua, center, with Joppa community members and Dallas Habitat officials on June 19, 2021.
Here’s some good news about a historically neglected neighborhood on the edge of Oak Cliff in South Dallas.
The 70-year-old Melissa Pierce School was deeded over to a new nonprofit, the Melissa Pierce Project, which is raising money to turn the former school into a multipurpose center “to help educate, elevate and empower Joppa residents.”
Joppa community leader Shalondria Galimore founded the nonprofit. Dallas Habitat turned the property over to the Melissa Pierce Project during the Joppa Juneteenth celebration Saturday.
The former segregated public school was built in the early 1950s, and it began closing in 1968. Neighborhood resident Melissa Pierce originally donated the land for the school.
“The building site serves as a historic reminder of her legacy and the tight-knit nature of the vibrant Joppa community,” the nonprofit stated in a media release.
Joppa was established as a freedmen’s community in the 1870s. It’s small and secluded, hemmed in by the Union Pacific railroad, a cement batching plant and the Trinity River.
Dallas Habitat was given the land, which includes the school and an adjacent football field, in 2017. The Melissa Pierce Project formed a committee to decide how to reuse the school to best serve the community.
The project expects to raise funds from a variety of sources, public and private, including the City of Dallas.
The University of Texas at Arlington “has been pivotal” in supporting this project’s inception.
Watch UTA architecture professor Kathryn Holliday’s 30-minute presentation about the school, from February, below.
