AT LAST! Urban Boarding Experience plans big expansion

A special Dallas place in South Oak Cliff that helps kids from rough neighborhoods get a better start has big expansion plans.

Founder Randy Bowman said AT LAST! Urban Boarding Experience on East Overton Road is located in a zip code that is one of the state’s highest contributors to Texas prisons.

It got started just before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite that setback, it has made big progress in serving families.

Bowman, a successful businessman, said he grew up in a rough part of Dallas with a single mom who struggled to do the best she could for her kids.

He envisioned “AT LAST!” as a way to help kids like him succeed.

“How would impoverished kids perform in school if they had the same educational resources that their more affluent peers have available to them when they are at home,” Bowman said.

Parent Benjamin Simms said he knows the answer to that question from his 6 and 8-year-old boys, who are in the program.

“I’ve already seen the benefits, I mean, social interaction, again the resources, being exposed to things that they may not be exposed to just being at home with us,” Simms said.

Simms said he and his wife can’t always provide what AT LAST! offers.

The program selects second through sixth-grade boys and girls through a lottery for the 16 beds currently available because there’s tremendous demand.

“We have to get them while they are young to get them the kind of shot that they need in life,” Bowman said.

The kids stay in the boarding environment when they are not at school Sunday night through Friday afternoon, with one counselor assigned to every three kids.

“We want them to feel inspired when they come in,” Bowman said. “It’s nicer than a lot of families in any neighborhood have.”

NBC 5 first visited what was a former dumping ground back in early 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic, when the city council was considering a $400,000 grant to help get the program going.

The first building was just a shell at that time.

The neighborhood Dallas City Council Member Carolyn King Arnold is a former teacher who was an early supporter of the program and remains supportive now.

“At Last means at last we have a solution to address some of the kids we call latchkey kids, kids that don’t have an opportunity to get additional enrichment,” she said. “It’s extremely rewarding for us to have this investment from the city of Dallas to be a partner with AT LAST!”

The program currently has just 12 children, but the goal is expanding to 180 with new buildings planned on the Overton Road site.

It is beside a park and across the street from South Oak Cliff High School.

“We look forward to expanding and really being a partner as they expand,” King Arnold said.

The long-term dream is to open other At Last boarding locations around the city.

Parent Benjamin Simms said there is clearly a need.

“Over time it will change a community. It will make a community that much better,” Simms said.

AT LAST! Urban Boarding seeks private donations for most of the expenses. Families selected to participate pay nothing for the service.