32 Years of People + Parks

“In 1992, park advocates, recreationalists and environmentalists came together to raise community awareness of the parks in Austin. Many long-time Austinites had seen the city’s park system deteriorate in recent years. The Austin Parks Foundation was born.”

That’s from our first Report to Contributors that went out in 1996. This was our Mission Statement at that time:

The mission of the Austin Parks Foundation is to develop partnerships and resources to support the needs of Austin area parks. These principles guide the actions of the Austin Parks Foundation: We seek to heighten public awareness of and involvement in Austin parks. We seek to improve existing park resources including facilities, programs, and parklands. We seek to increase responsibility for the funding of parks and their programs. We seek to develop new park resources in underserved areas of the Austin community.

So many of these principles continue to guide this organization. At the heart of our mission today, we seek to partner with our community to enhance people’s lives by making our public parks, trails and green spaces better through volunteerism, innovative programming, advocacy and financial support.

Parks (and people like you) remain at the forefront of all we do. It’s difficult to sum up the work we’ve been able to do (with YOUR help, of course) over the last 32 years, but we’ll try.

As the years have passed, we’ve been part of the original conceptual masterplan for Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Bend Park. In the late 1990’s/early 2000’s, APF was a funder and sponsor for the masterplan that led to the design and plans for the first phase of the park.

For 20+ years we’ve hosted our biannual, community-wide event, It’s My Park Day! We held our largest event to date earlier this year 🤯

As we look ahead, we’ll continue to enhance Austin’s parks, host Open Workdays, advocate for the parks budget at City Hall, engage the community with our In the Park series – movies and playdates – and so much more, like building Austin’s first public All Abilities Playground coming to Onion Creek Metropolitan Park!

So again, here’s to 32 years of People + Parks and many more to come! Thanks for joining us on this journey 💚