The history of Neighborhood Service Council is best understood in terms of striking social changes in Dallas, Texas, and in its suburb, Richardson.

During the decades following the second World War, technology-based companies moved to Dallas and  thousands of new residents flocked to the city to work for them. In turn, builders put up large apartment complexes to accommodate young families moving to the city.  This altered the semi-rural character of the northern region of Dallas and also the nearby town of Richardson.  In those boom days, country lanes became city streets and fields became shopping centers. But during the 1970s the flood of new residents subsided, in particular as the economy lapsed into recession in 1973. And when recovery began, builders began to turn their attention even farther north, to towns like Plano.

An acute transition took place in certain areas of North Dallas and Richardson during the 1970s, especially those  near the intersection of Spring Valley Road and Coit Road in Dallas. Many apartment complexes in the region rapidly became low-income neighborhoods populated with families from not only Latin American countries but also Southeast Asia, India, China and a long list of others, Kurdistan for instance. The community reacted by providing new elementary schools with teachers especially  trained to deal with these children. But changing the schools did not change the essential character of the neighborhoods, which. all agreed were not desirable places for children to grow up, even though the police stepped up law enforcement measures significantly. Still, the parents of the children who lived in these neighborhoods were reluctant to let their children go out without being closely watched.

The community at large naturally began to consider other actions designed to arrest the growth of the blighted areas within it. Experience in dealing with urban blight has shown that a powerful way to control it is to ensure that the children of the blighted area are empowered to get out of it when they grow up. It was to accomplish this that Neighborhood Service Council was formed in 1989 as a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, designed to break the cycle of poverty by intervening in the lives of the disadvantaged children.

NSC soon determined that nearly all the residents of the low-income neighborhoods worked, some of them at two or even three jobs. Their major concern was the safety of their children in an  at-risk environment. Many families were quite unable to afford regular child care.  NSC  began its work by establishing in 1989 two core programs: a free after-school program, and along with it, a free summer day camp program.

The first Executive Director of NSC, Mrs. Janis Dumas, a sociologist of long experience, recognized from the beginning the extreme difference between the home environment of the children in NSC's programs and that of their affluent classmates. She therefore initiated the practice of demanding that children in the after-school program do their homework, and she attracted dozens of tutors from the community to help them. Almost at once, the children's grades in school began to improve. This has happened year after year without fail throughout the 20 years. Mrs. Dumas named this initiative Bringing Up Grades, and therefore it has always been affectionately known as the "BUG" program. It involves not only the mechanical issue of doing one's school assignments properly,  but also the way that tutors let the children know how important doing the work is to their future lives. Today the principals of the local elementary schools work enthusiastically with NSC to maintain the quality of the effort. 

NSC's summer day camp program introduces the children to activities that they would almost never experience without the intervention of NSC, for instance visits to gymnasiums and swimming pools at community recreation centers. One outstanding example of what NSC can do in this regard is the existence of a soccer league for the disadvantaged kids.  Mrs. Carolyn Stewart,  a long-time member of the Board of Directors of NSC, started the league and has been the principal force in attracting sponsors and coaches for it. She keeps the cost of participation to a minimum. Although there is an array of sports available to the children of affluent families in our community, it is fair to say that the soccer league that NSC supports is the only one practically available to the children of disadvantaged families.

Although NSC is a secular corporation with no church affiliation, it was sited until the beginning of the 2008 summer program in the basement of a church that graciously donated its facility without making demands that it be used to advance its particular religion. In fact, over the years NSC's children have come from all  religions, and among the supporters of NSC are churches of all religions and denominations. 

Today NSC's headquarters are located near the corner of Coit Road and Peyton Road in Dallas. Program Director of NSC is Shawn Ainsworth, who continues NSC's tradition of Expanding Kids' Horizons through loving community action.

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