ACL Music Festival’s Impact on Austin Parks

2010 marks the fifth year that the Austin Parks Foundation has benefited from ticket sales to the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Since 2006, we have received $2.34 M targeted towards park improvement projects. Among the projects completed or underway are:

• $400,000 for improvements to Republic Square, including tree care and planting, berm removal, irrigation and grass installation and design and construction of the 4,100 square-foot deck.
• $100,000 for tree care, tree planting and irrigation system installation and maintenance in and around Barton Springs Pool.  (To date, we have spent $26,000 for irrigation system installation and the planting of 78 trees.  The larger part of the funds will be used  this winter and spring.)
• $16,000 for tree work, irrigation system installation, mulch, plants, benches and trash cans for Brush Square in downtown Austin.
• $500,000 for the first of five annual payments to the City of Austin for the Zilker Great Lawn Project completed in 2009.

In addition, we have funded 84 projects awarded to volunteer community groups that have adopted parks and work with us to maintain and improve their neighborhood parks.  As part of our park grants requirements, our community groups have raised an additional $575,227 in matching funds for their projects.  For further information, read the full article here.

For a listing all grants given since 2001 (ACL grants began in 2007) please visit our park grants page. Any community group who has adopted a city of Austin park site can apply for a grant. Deadlines are September 30 and May 30 of each year.

Wed, 9/29 – Movie at Republic Square: Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure

The story of a rebel and his bike.  Join us at Republic Square, Wed, 9/29 at dusk for Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, sponsored by Mellow Johnny’s .  Ride your bike to and from the movie and enjoy free bike valet parking, thanks to Mellow Johnny’s.

Our tremendous thanks to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the Downtown Austin Alliance, and the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Dept for their support!

Thanks to our volunteers and sponsors

It was hot, it was sweaty, it was tough work, but we’re grateful to our 300 plus volunteers for coming out and helping us get rid of a few thousand invasive trees of the ligustrum, chinaberry and nandina variety!

A heartfelt thanks to our partners Hill Country Conservancy, EarthShare of Texas, REI, American Youthworks E-Corps, Greenbelt Guardians, Austin Ridge Riders, Central Texas Trail Tamers, Central Texas Montaineers and the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Dept.  Thanks to our sponsors REI (again), H-E-B, Austin Java, Thundercloud Subs, Clif Bar, Texas Gas Service, Honest Tea, and Miller Lite.

We’ll get more photos soon, we had just a few brief moments to shoot a few here and there during the 3 hours of work.

3 Locations for Barton Creek Workday

Just a correction of our remainder email today stating only one of the three locations for tomorrow’s workday – there are three – in addition to Zilker Access, there’s SpyGlass Access with the Greenbelt Guardians and New Wall Trail work with the Central Texas Mountaineers.  If you show up at the wrong one, we’ll re-direct you, we apologize for this error.

300 plus people working at Barton Creek Greenbelt tomorrow!

Tomorrow is National Public Lands Day and we have 300 plus volunteers coming to remove invasives, repair trail tread and well, remove more invasives.  The weather is looking good (cool front won’t be arriving until mid-afternoon) so we’ll see you out there!

If you haven’t signed up, please come to Zilker Access (just south in the same parking lot at Barton Springs Pool and the Hillside Theater) and help us wrench, cut, process and haul invasive species.  Registration at 8:45 am, Rep Doggett makes a big announcement at 9 am, we workign from 9:30-12:30 and then lunch and t-shirt handouts after that.  (Groups working at Spyglass and New Wall meet and work elsewhere and then join the bigger group at Zilker for lunch at 12:30.  Our tremendous thanks to our partners Hill Country Conservancy, Austin Parks and Recreation, Greenbelt Guardians, Central Texas Mountaineers, Austin Ridge Riders, Central Texas Trail Tamers.  Thanks to our sponsors REI, Impact Austin, EarthShare of Texas, Austin Java, H-E-B, Thundercloud.

Barton Creek Greenbelt – Work Completed and Yet To Begin

As you probably know, the Austin Parks Foundation and Hill Country Conservancy, along with our friends at REI, Greenbelt Guardians, Central Tx Mountaineers, Austin Ridge Riders, Central Texas Trail Tamers and a host of sponsors are hosting the first (of many) National Public Lands Days out at Barton Creek Greenbelt. We’ll be working on trail improvements and Invasive species removal, so a few pictures are in order:

This is the repaired portion of trail where we had a major drainage / erosion issue – fixed by American Youthworks and volunteers.  Nice rock work!

And for work that we’ll be starting, a couple of stands of ligustrum (invasive species) along the first 500 yards of trail that we’ll be pulling out starting on Saturday

21 Acres to be Donated to the City in Montopolis

For Immediate Release September 21, 2010

Montopolis Tributary Trail Association

Media Contact: Stefan Wray stefan@iconmedia.org

512-983-5852

21 ACRES TO BE DONATED TO CITY IN MONTOPOLIS Austin, Texas – The Montopolis Tributary Trail Association and Montopolis neighbors very much thank the McElhenney Family for their generous donation of 21.3 acres of their property to the City of Austin that will be preserved as open green space.

City staff confirmed today that the City will accept the land from Amy Barbee, John McElhenney, and Jennifer McElhenney Bertino that makes up nearly half the property they own in the Montopolis neighborhood adjacent to State Highway 183.

The donated property is rich with flora and fauna. An abundance of heritage trees provide home and cover to a diversity of animal species, including horny toads, jackrabbits, hawks, and deer. The sisters and brother inherited the property more than 20 years ago from their father and it has remained as undeveloped land. The deal with the City was made possible with support from attorney Stephen Drenner. The Montopolis Tributary, a main branch of the Carson Creek watershed, bisects the McElhenney property. 17.4 acres of this portion is entirely within the 100-year floodplain. This part will become under the management of the City’s Watershed Protection Department. Another 3.87 acre parcel adjacent to the Montopolis Practice Field, located at Felix Ave. and Vasquez St., will be under the management of the City’s Parks Department.

This donated land adds to an existing 13 acres of Watershed property and 6 acres of Park land bringing to a 40 acre total the amount of contiguous public land, by far the largest acreage within the Montopolis neighborhood.

The Montopolis Tributary Trail Association, which has received a grant from the Austin Parks Foundation to build a multimodal hike and bike trail in this area, welcomes the opportunity to work with the City and others on the best use of this property. The association also keenly awaits word from the National Park Service, to which it has applied for support from its Rivers Trails & Conservation Assistance Program. If it is a grant recipient, the association looks forward to bringing in other partners such as the Texas Riparian Association to help with tributary restoration.  - end -

New “Green Wall” Garden @ Nicholas Dawson Park

Completed Project

Thanks to Matt Coldwell for these before and after pictures showing a revitalized “green wall” garden area at Nicholas Dawson Park in the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood.  Funding was provided by the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association and an Austin Parks Foundation grant.

Thanks to the over 130 volunteers at Zilker this week

Over 130 volunteers came out on Thu, Fri and Sat mornings to help us shovel, haul and spread mulch under another 100 or so trees.   Meantime, arborists continue to perform root zone invigorations on 90 trees, they nearly halfway done with the work and given our recent rains (including a rain shower early this afternoon), we’re hoping that the trees will respond whether they have mulched or invigorated.

An example of a well mulched tree by our volunteers

Our thanks to volunteers from Dell, UT, St. Edwards University, Crockett High School and some of great individual volunteers.  Thanks too to our amazing City Parks Forestry staff who were hauling in mulch, helping us load wheelbarrows and carts and get hundreds of cubic yards spread under some amazing trees.  Thanks to the recent rains, the park is looking much greeener too.

Ok, now onto National Public Lands Day on Sat, Sept 25th at Barton Creek Greenbelt!

Register for National Public Lands Day – 9/25 @ Barton Creek Greenbelt

We’re a little more than a week away from National Public Lands Day and we’re looking for another 100 volunteers.  You get coffee, lunch and a cool t-shirt with the design shown here.  You help us with invasive species removal, trail work and rock work and even some trash pickup.  Please join us. Sign up here