WHOLE Enchilada Subscription Drive: Will you help us grow? (And, no, we’re not asking for money!)

It’s You – the people of Waco – that make Waco a terrific place to live!  You are the not-so-secret ingredient that’s making Waco better and better.  Our job at Act Locally Waco is to help you do that!  Will you help us help you?

Every Friday Act Locally Waco pumps out the information you need to stay involved and engaged in Waco.  It’s all there in our free weekly e-newsletter, The WHOLE Enchilada.  November is “subscription drive month” for The WHOLE Enchilada.  Will you help us grow?   We are asking all friends of Act Locally Waco to basically do two things: 1. Subscribe yourself (if you haven’t already), and 2. Encourage your friends to do the same!

Since 2013, The Act Locally Waco weekly newsletter – The WHOLE Enchilada — has been providing engaged Wacoans (That’s You again!) with the information you need to enjoy Waco and get involved in building up your community. 

Here are a few examples of the kinds of information we have gathered for you from the last few weeks:

  • Statements from the mayor/city council candidates to help you understand how they would approach the job if elected
  • A “plain English” translation of the “impact fee” proposal– an important, but complicated issue for the future of Waco that City Council has been working on for years.
  • An introduction to Tiffany Gallegos Whitley who will be leading the new “Upskill Waco” workforce initiative at Prosper Waco.
  • Updates on Meals and Wheels, Caritas, Christian Women’s Job Corps and other non-profits.  Information to keep you informed about what’s happening with them and how you can help.
  • Events from the YMCA, the Centex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Grassroots Waco, the Mayborn Museum, Keep Waco Beautiful, Creative Waco, McLennan County Community College and countless others so you can plan your weeks and days.  
  • Job opportunities for example at the COVE and the Salvation Army among others. 

And that’s just a taste of what you find in The WHOLE Enchilada each week.  It is truly full to the edge of the plate with Waco goodness, plus – it’s free!

We currently have 3,111 subscribers, and our goal is to add 1,000 more.  Imagine the benefit to Waco of 1,000 more involved, engaged people!

If you are a social media follower, but you haven’t subscribed yet, go ahead and sign up!  Our current subscribers love the convenience of having everything pulled together each week and delivered to their email. If you are already a subscriber, please help us out by sharing The WHOLE Enchilada with 2 or 3 (or 10!) friends each week during November, and encouraging them to subscribe.   We’ll be posting the subscription link regularly on Facebook during November – so please share that as well.

Whether it’s patronizing an art opening, volunteering to help a child in the foster system, participating in an online auction for a local cause you care about, or finding out about opportunities to pick up litter – The WHOLE Enchilada makes it easy for you to stay informed so you can get involved.  Subscribe today!  Help us grow!  


“Act Locally Waco has been a really successful resource for us. Ashley Bean Thornton and all the people at Act Locally Waco have been willing to share all the things that we do around Waco to try and make it better. ”  — Ashley Millerd  Crownover, Keep Waco Beautiful

“Just about everything I’ve learned about Waco, aside from the Silos and Baylor, I’ve learned from Act Locally Waco!” — Ferrell Foster, brand new Waco resident 

“By subscribing to Act Locally Waco, I am always in the know of things that are happening within our community and amongst my neighbors.” — Cuevas Peacock, community volunteer and cheerleader  

“The Whole Enchilada is one of my weekly favorites. As both a subscriber and a contributor, I feel equally blessed by the efforts that Ashley and her team put forth in bringing such vital and unifying information to our community. Act Locally Waco and The Whole Enchilada are two of my favorite go-to sources for what’s new and happening in our community and how we are growing together to make Waco a great place to live for everyone!” — Lydia Tate, Christian Women’s Job Corps  

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What do we want for Waco?

By Ashley Bean Thornton

Sometimes people wonder about the things that get included in the Act Locally Waco newsletter. Why do we include things like “Art on Elm” or “Do Well, Be Well with Diabetes” or “First Friday Downtown.” What do these things have to do with reducing poverty?

It’s because poverty is not a problem like a weed that can be pulled out. Poverty is a vacuum. It’s a hole where something good should be, but isn’t. The only way to make the hole smaller is to put the good things in, things like healthy lifestyles, a booming economy, art, beauty, opportunity. To make Waco a great place to live we need to focus on what we want, not just on what we don’t want (poverty).

With that in mind Act Locally Waco uses the following twelve aspirations as a guide. They are a slightly modified version of the aspirations adopted by the Poverty Solutions Steering Committee and presented to the Waco City Council in June of 2012. They express what we want for Waco. Is this what you want too? If so, join us! Get informed. Get involved! Get a great community!

What we want for Waco…

1. To improve the health of our children and to support healthy, safe lives for all. – More children in Waco will be born healthy and more residents of Waco will be healthy throughout their lives. We will all be safe.

2. To prepare our children for success in school and beyond. – More children in Waco will start school ready to succeed, and more children will succeed through high school graduation.

3. To launch our young people into productive lives. – More young people in Waco will successfully make the transition from school to productive work that pays enough to establish a satisfying quality of life, and more will know how to manage resources wisely to sustain that quality of life.

4. To gainfully employ our working-age population. – More Waco residents will find and keep jobs that pay enough to sustain a satisfying quality of life without the need of government assistance, and more will know how to manage their resources wisely to maintain that quality of life.

5. To care for our elderly population. – More of the elderly people in Waco will have the resources they need to live out their lives with security and dignity.

6. To support residents who face special challenges. – More Waco residents who face physical, mental and social challenges will have the resources they need to live their lives with security and dignity.

7. To align our social services effectively. – Social-services and policy will be coordinated to effectively support upward mobility from economic dependence to independence where possible, and to effectively and respectfully serve those for whom independence is not possible.

8. To strengthen our neighborhoods. – More of our neighborhoods and residential areas in Waco will be clean, safe and attractive. Neighbors will work effectively together to accomplish common goals.

9. To make our shared spaces beautiful. – More of our shared public spaces and commercial spaces will be clean, safe, attractive, accessible and accommodating.Logo - 11-30-2012

10. To energize our economic base. – Our local economy will create more job opportunities with the living wages needed to help employees achieve their goals.

11. To empower our residents. – More residents of Waco will have the cultural, political and leadership skills and sense of responsibility to advocate effectively for themselves, their families and their communities. More people will participate in the collaborative work of making our city a great place to live for every person of every income level.

12. To enjoy life together! – Waco residents and visitors, regardless of socio-economic status, will enjoy opportunities to appreciate natural beauty, to have fun, to enjoy the arts and to grow socially and culturally.

Questions 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 the Homeless” downtown three years in a row… always the day after it was over. I thought it would be handy to have someplace where people could find out about these kinds of events in time to plan to participate. I mentioned the idea to a few other people, and they seemed to agree, so I put up a website and down the road we went.

Up to that point I had not thought very much about what we mean when we say “community.” Working on Act Locally Waco, though, and later serving on the Poverty Solutions Steering Committee caused me to think more and more about the concept: What is a community, really? What kind of community do I want to live in? What is my role and responsibility in bringing that about? What about people who disagree about what kind of community we want? Who do I want to be “in community” with? Can a city as large as Waco have a real sense of community? How can a community work together to solve problems or move toward goals? How do we get a community of people with diverse histories, cultures, financial situations, education levels, religions, political persuasions, etc. etc. to even decide what we want to do, much less work together? How do we balance self-interest with the mutual interests of the community? What builds a community? What tears it down? Why should we care?

This past Thursday, like many of you, I watched the beautiful, somber, heart-breaking, uplifting service for the first-responders who died in the terrible explosion in West. Nearly 10,000 people filled the Ferrell Center for the service and thousands more watched from satellite locations and through computer and television screens. Every single one of us, I imagine, considers these twelve to be heroes – not simply because they died, though that is tragic — but because they died for the sake of others – for the community. Lord God, what would you have me learn from them about what it means to be a community?

What’s the connection?

By Ashley Bean Thornton

Today – as you know – has been a glorious spring day in Waco. I had already been to the Downtown Farmer’s Market for lunch, and was taking a break after exploring Art on Elm when I happened to walk up behind my friend DB in line at Lula Jane’s . He surprised me by gallantly paying for my orange-cranberry scone and iced tea.  That’s the kind of day it has been, the kind where somebody picks up your tab just because you’re standing next to him in line — a TERRIFIC day.

So it came to pass that I’m munching my scone and visiting with my benefactor and his lovely and talented wife, LB, when she says, “I got your email,” meaning the Act Locally Waco Friday Update email. Then she makes a sweeping gesture with her arm that takes in the scone, Art on Elm, and the whole glorious day, and she asks, “What’s the connection?”   I don’t know why she asked it – maybe she had seen the blurb about Art on Elm in the Friday Update and wanted to know why a blurb about an art festival was included in a newsletter about reducing poverty.  We didn’t end up talking about it.  Someone else wandered up and took the conversation in a different direction, or maybe we just got distracted by an especially tasty bite of scone; anyway, we never finished the thought.

There is a connection though.

Act Locally Waco was born out of a desire to help reduce poverty in Waco.  The basic idea was that there are (A) lots of people in Waco who care about reducing poverty, and (B) lots of things going on in town to reduce poverty, and maybe it would be (C) helpful to have a website to help bring A and B together. From the very beginning, though, an important part of the Act Locally Waco philosophy has been that “not-poverty” is not enough.  It’s not enough to dwell solely on what we DON’T want; we need to do some dwelling on what we DO want. And one of the things we DO want is more days like today:  a day that every person in Waco can enjoy regardless of income level, a day to come out and commune with your neighbors and listen to music in the beautiful sunshine, a day to fall in love with everyone you see, a day to remember how great we can be together.