We’d like to take a few minutes and just thank all of the attendees of the Austin City Limits Music Festival since 2006, when we entered into an agreement with C3 Presents, Inc. and the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department. Each year, we receive a percentage of ticket sales that can only be spent on City of Austin park improvements. While we have invested (and continue to re-pay) the big improvements to the Zilker Great Lawn, we have been able fund hundreds of smaller projects in parks across Austin.
To put it simply, we could not have done what we’ve done since early 2007, when we received our first check from the festival. And it’s not just the funds from the festival, for every dollar we can spend on a project, we get a matching dollar from another donor or in-kind donations from professionals in the landscape, design or building trade. It’s pretty amazing.
As a result, we now have nearly 100 community volunteer groups who have adopted parks and work regularly to improve and care for their parks. We’ve also have been working on a big effort along the Barton Creek Greenbelt this year, with a crew of five from another great non-profit, American Youthworks Environmental Corps, working out in the cold and heat (but mostly the heat this summer!) Half of the funding for this project came from Impact Austin, a really cool giving circle, with the rest from ACL funding, funding from another non-profit, Hill Country Conservancy and contributions from Bicycle Sport Shop and REI.
And so, the staff and board of directors of the Austin Parks Foundation thank all of the attendees of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. We’re happy you’re here and we hope that you stay hydrated, smoke-free (please don’t smoke in our parks and trails, we’re VERY nervous about our extreme fire danger situation) and that you thoroughly enjoy the festival over the next three days.
