Posts by Ashley Thornton
For every White person in Waco: Five Things to Do
By Ashley Bean Thornton After attending two Juneteenth celebrations and the terrific mural celebration party at the East Waco Library, I have seen far more Black people in the last month than I have seen in the 24 months before that combined. Does that last sentence make you cringe a little? It made me cringe…
Read MoreCheck Engine Light
By Ashley Bean Thornton The week after Father’s Day is a terrible time to talk about your Dad’s failures, but I think my dad would agree with me on one of his: he did a terrible job teaching me about cars. To be fair, my mom didn’t do any better. I got my first car…
Read MoreYou have the right to speak to an attorney…
By Ashley Bean Thornton If, like me, you learned most of what you know about the law from watching TV, you may be familiar with the words, “You have the right to speak to an attorney… If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.” It turns out that…
Read MoreTwo Generations of Home Ownership
By Gabriela Gatlin Salome Ibañez walked into my office on January 28th and asked to buy our newly renovated house on N. 13th Street. On February 28th he sat down with Mike Stone at the title company, signed closing documents, and took the keys to his new home. Salome took a month to accomplish what…
Read MoreBridges out of Poverty: Sometimes you have to care enough to do it wrong!
“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” – G.K. Chesterton By Ashley Bean Thornton In last week’s blog I introduced you to a fascinating company, Cascade Engineering in Grand Rapids, Michigan. According to a 2003 article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Cascade’s CEO, Fred Keller, “…doesn’t think that the role…
Read MoreBridges out of Poverty: One word – “Plastics!”
By Ashley Bean Thornton By the third day of Bridges out of Poverty training last week, my brain was pretty much full to capacity and overflowing, so I almost missed one of the best parts of the whole training: The story of Cascade Engineering. Cascade Engineering , headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, specializes in large…
Read MoreBridges out of Poverty: The Elephant in the Room
By Ashley Bean Thornton I’m a sucker for a good parable. Here’s an oldie, but goodie — one that I have been thinking of this week while attending the Bridges out of Poverty training as part of the Prosper Waco Initiative… Once upon a time there was a tiny village where no one had ever…
Read MoreHe’s got a ticket to ride…the bus
By Ashley Bean Thornton On February 21, 2013, I sat in a booth in my satellite office, Whataburger, visiting with David Ellis – the new Supervisor of Attendance, Truancy and Dropout Recovery at WISD. He was fairly new to Waco. After years serving as a pastor in Baytown, Texas, he had followed his wife here so…
Read MoreBeware the bad air
By Ashley Bean Thornton I recently read an article that went into great detail about the concentration of wealth in the United States and argued that it was bad for so much wealth to be concentrated in the hands of so few. To tell you the truth, I don’t understand economics well enough to know…
Read MoreQuestions about community…
By Ashley Bean Thornton When I started Act Locally Waco, it was based on a simple idea. I knew there were all kinds of activities going on around town to build up the community, but it seemed like I was always finding out about them too late. I specifically remember reading about the “Walk for…
Read More