With $200,000 in grants and new financial resources, efforts to support businesses in South Dallas are growing. From banking education to pop-up shops, local entrepreneurs are finding new ways to thrive. NBC 5’s David Goins has the story.
Chef Felicia Guimont prepares for a catering gig the same way, every time.
“You know we always have to have our tools to make sure our temperatures are correct,” Guimont said.
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WATCH HEREFor 28 years, the North Texas chef, known as "Chef Fee," has worked in various commercial kitchens, cooking and baking for clients, feeding unsheltered populations in Fort Worth and providing outreach for young people who want to start their own businesses.
Her business, OMG Cakes, keeps her busy throughout the region, but specifically in south Dallas. She said it’s a business she started on her own in 1997.
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SIGN UP “I had nobody to say, 'This is how you do it,'” Guimont said. “Financial literacy is the biggest thing and if I could’ve learned at an earlier age, I probably would have had so many franchises now.”
Guimont said some of that education happens just down the street inside a local bank branch.
“What I didn’t get then, the kids can get now,” Guimont said.
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Vista Bank, which has branches throughout North Texas, opened its branch on MLK Boulevard in 2024.
The former Social Security office is home to what you will see inside any banking and lending institution, but Lubbock Smith III said the design includes intentionality for community space, too.
“Teach our community how to fish and have a quality pond to fish from,” Smith said.
The location includes spaces for the South Dallas Fair Park Innovation Center, the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce and what Smith describes as a financial literacy center.
“We need more individuals who have the, not only the income, but the intentionality and the heart to actually transform the community,” Smith said. “I think it's showing a lot of the potential that areas like South Dallas have throughout the southern sector.”
Guimont said the courses she’s attended in the financial literacy center, which is open to the community, have put on her a path working toward opening a brick-and-mortar location.
“You can’t really have a business and put the finances under your pillow,” Guimont said. “Sacrifice the time, sit in the classroom and I learn to walk towards the yes.”
