Hispanic Heritage Month starts today and Pease Park Conservancy is honored to have cultivated a team with such rich and diverse backgrounds!
Representation matters and thanks to these incredible individuals, we have been able to broaden our community offerings and how we serve Spanish speakers through bilingual communications, programming, and our Ecologist School Field Trips. Join us in celebrating the value and leadership they bring to the organization and its mission by getting to know them!
As Latino Conservation Week comes to an end, we want to reflect on the many different ways in which Latinos are playing a role in conservation. From organizing events for groups to spend time in nature like Latino Outdoors’ initiative does, to working in land management, parks departments, and leading research across various topics concerning conservation - the work doesn’t end here! We hope you’ll stay connected with this initiative led by the Hispanic Access Foundation!
Thank you for your feedback and concerns regarding the splash pad at Pease Park.
At this time, public safety remains our top priority. We cannot reopen the water feature until we are absolutely certain it is safe to do so. The sophisticated controller equipment that continuously monitors water quality, dispenses the chemicals, and automatically shuts off the splash pad when water quality is out of balance must be operating properly to ensure that it is safe for play. Unhealthy water quality can cause illness and death.We want to assure you that we are working diligently to diagnose the problem and make the necessary repairs. We are working with GPSI, the firm that designed and built the splash pad, as well as IPS, the manufacturer of the controller equipment.
For the past 10 years, the week of July 15 through July 23rd has been recognized as Latino Conservation Week - An initiative led by the Hispanic Access Foundation to further amplify the presence of Latinos in the outdoors. During this time organizations and community groups across the country have gathered and participated in various events to promote conservation efforts in their local environments.
In honor of Latino Conservation Week, we spoke to Josie (San Antonio Regional Coordinator) and Bianca (Program Coordinator) of Latino Outdoors about the history of Latino Outdoors, the work that they do and why it’s important to build an inclusive outdoors:
One of February’s long celebrated moments of remembrance. Since 1976 we have made it an American practice to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” — Pease Park Conservancy is working to center narratives, prioritize experiences, and most importantly to restructuralize how public land is cultivated and shared.
We’re deep in the heart (and heat) of summer and with consistently record high temperatures, Texas has been dryer than usual. One thing we can take away from this moment is the need for collective support. While native species are acclimated to their natural environments, they still require care during extreme climate conditions. That’s where our park staff and volunteers come in.
In partnership with Future Front Texas and Equality Texas, our first Pride Picnic in Pease Park was glorious! We plan to make this an annual event on the 4th Sunday of June so we can celebrate Pride & Love with our community time and time again.
Banned Camp is a partnership between Austin Public Library and BookPeople. Pease Park Conservancy is excited to participate in this program to help our littlest readers engage with the conversation around intellectual freedom at these early literacy building storytimes in Pease Park.
Learn more about when readings will be occurring and what books will be presented.
The Pease Park Treehouse was voted Best of Austin in the Kids & Family Wild Card category in the Austin Chronicle Best Of awards for 2022! Thank you Austin for voting for us.
One of February’s long celebrated moments of remembrance. Since 1976 we have made it an American practice to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” — Pease Park Conservancy is working to center narratives, prioritize experiences, and most importantly to restructuralize how public land is cultivated and shared.
On MLK Day each year, we typically join the community March organized by the Austin Area Heritage Council to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. The March has been cancelled this year in light of current COVID circumstances, but we still want to follow Dr. King’s leadership and celebrate his teachings. We will host a food drive at Pease Park in recognition of MLK Day that will support Central Texas Food Bank on Monday, January 17th.
Austin is home to people from all walks of life and each individual comes with a different story. In People of Pease Park, we highlight people that make Austin’s green space the dynamically vibrant place we know and love. Marshall May has a passion for creating homes for Eastern Screech Owls and he installed 30 of his hand-made Screech Owl boxes in Pease Park. We are thrilled for Pease Park to be a sanctuary for these beautiful creatures and we are grateful to Marshall for his expertise.
Mary Tipps made this Owl House project possible and we are so grateful to her for her generous support of this project and of Pease Park Conservancy.
We are bombarded each day with news, responsibilities, and stressors, making it more important than ever to put time and energy into caring for ourselves. As we at Pease Park Conservancy care for and maintain this urban green space, we are awed by all of the incredible ways that you are finding your “pease”, joy, and comfort in the outdoors. Take a look at some of the ways people are connecting with one another, with nature, and with the arts.
Austin is home to people from all walks of life who are rooted in different parts of the world. Each individual comes with a different story of what led them to this city and how they discovered Pease Park. In People of Pease Park, we will highlight people that make Austin’s green space the dynamically vibrant place we know and love. In this story, we interviewed Daniel Palmer, a long-time Austinite well-known for his soothing acoustic guitar playing, alongside his usual bench facing Shoal Creek at Live Oak Meadow.
Jo Sue and her daughter Josie, both citizens of the Cherokee Nation who live in Austin and regularly spend time in Pease Park, are helping us at Pease Park Conservancy think through how to honor and recognize the storied history of this land. We want Indigenous People to feel acknowledged and included and the entire Austin community to learn and reflect on the past, present, and future of Indigenous Cultures. We want to center Native voices and Jo Sue and Josie agreed to share their insights with us here as a part of Native American Heritage Month.
Preservation Austin has recently announced that Pease Park Conservancy is a recipient of a 2021 Preservation Merit Award for the Rehabilitation of The Tudor Cottage at Pease Park. The 61st annual Preservation Merit Awards recognize ambitious and innovative approaches to preserving the city’s historic places. Pease Park Conservancy is honored to be among the fourteen recipients of this award this year that recognizes leadership in the restoration and preservation of Austin’s most historic and iconic places.
We are proud to announce that the recently completed Kingsbury Commons project was awarded Gold under the Sustainable SITES Initiative (SITES) rating system. This designation puts Pease Park in an elite group of local green spaces and makes it the first park in the Austin Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) portfolio to be SITES certified.
The naming committee has reached a decision on the Pease Park Conservancy squirrel name! Learn the name of our park mascot in this video as it reflects back on its life in the great big world and in the park it calls home!
Thank you to everyone who submitted a name idea!
