NorthPark Center: Corporate Partner
Congratulations to NorthPark Center, named a 2020 award finalist by DCEO Magazine as an outstanding corporate partner.
Why does this individual or organization deserve recognition for its efforts to support the North Texas community?*
For 25 years this summer, NorthPark Center has hosted Dallas CASA’s signature fundraising and awareness event Parade of Playhouses. Custom-designed and built playhouses donated by local architects, builders and corporations decorate the halls of NorthPark for two weeks each summer. The event benefits Dallas CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and the child victims served by the organization’s 1,500 trained child advocates each year.
Parade of Playhouses was created in Dallas by longtime Dallas CASA board member Dave Kroencke in 1996. From the very start, Parade of Playhouses was a huge success, bringing in broad community support and involving hundreds of volunteer hours to plan and orchestrate. Due to its location, annual visitors and enthusiastic partnership, NorthPark serving as host has been integral to the event’s success and draw.
The exposure Dallas CASA receives from shoppers at the center is simply not possible anywhere else. NorthPark estimates more than million visitors see the playhouses on display each summer. For Dallas CASA, the event raises funds through sponsorships and sales of raffle tickets to win a playhouse. But, perhaps even more critically, the event raises awareness of the plight of abused and neglected children and the need for volunteers to advocate for them. Dallas CASA annually recruits hundreds of new volunteers, and many of these volunteers learned about Dallas CASA at NorthPark.
Corporate Partner of the Year: Describe how the company has supported one local nonprofit through various methods, from cash and sponsorship, for example, to volunteering and board membership.*
NorthPark Center and the Nasher family have walked along side Dallas CASA as we have grown and expanded our reach. Over the past decade, Dallas CASA has been on a tremendous growth spurt, growing and expanding our program capacity to serve every child in Dallas who needs a volunteer, and NorthPark has continued their commitments to Dallas CASA. In 2010 for Dallas CASA’s 30th anniversary, Nancy Nasher, president of NorthPark Development Corporation, said: “CASA volunteers are my personal heroes; they are frequently the one constant in an abused, neglected or abandoned child’s life. Through a perpetually shifting storm of well-meaning, but often overworked and stretched adults, this one person finds a way to see beyond the obvious pain and injury to the inner child and provide emotional shelter and a proactive voice in and out of the court.”
For NorthPark’s 50th anniversary in 2015, the organization committed to 50 years of giving back to the community. They donated billboards advertising for volunteers to Dallas CASA, allowing us to recruit more volunteers at a critical growth point. In 2016, Dallas CASA honored NorthPark with the Champion of Children Award for its continued dedication to bettering the lives of Dallas children. Since the event’s inception in 1996, Parade of Playhouses has grossed more than $2.8 million and featured 310 houses, and we are looking forward to Dallas CASA’s 25th anniversary of Parade of Playhouses at NorthPark Center beginning July 10, 2020.
See all the DCEO 2020 Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards finalists here.
