Austin Parks Foundation (APF) is pleased to award our latest ACL Music Festival Grants to parks across Austin! These grants help to fund improvements and amenities identified by community members and park adopters. These grants are in addition to the millions that APF invests in our parks each year.
Using ACL Music Festival funds, APF awards two types of grants: Neighborhood Grants ($500 – $5,000) and Community Impact Grants ($5,000+). Neighborhood Grants are designed for small-scale, community-initiated park improvements while Community Impact Grants are designed for large-scale park improvements.
In addition to these grants, ACL Music Festival Funds go toward capital projects, It’s My Park Day, year-round Open Workdays and unrestricted funds for the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department park projects.
This round of grant projects range from basketball court renovations to shade and a few things in between! Take a look at what’s been completed and what’s coming to a park near you.
Completed Projects:
Neighborhood Grants
Onion Creek Dog Park
The Onion Creek Dog Park is a popular off-leash area located within Onion Creek Greenbelt in southeast Austin. The area is prone to flooding and therefore cannot have standard park amenities like benches, leaving dog owners and park users to create temporary seating with chairs brought from home. A community member saw this great need for seating, especially in shady spots, and went to the Austin Parks Foundation website where he noticed that one of our staff member’s favorite parks was this off-leash area and greenbelt! This led him to apply for a Neighborhood Grant for $4,870 to install limestone blocks to be used as seating throughout the park. The impact was immediate and significant! As the blocks were being installed park-goers expressed their gratitude for such a simple change that greatly increased their park experience and ability to sit and connect with others!
Georgian Acres
In 2018, Georgian Acres Neighborhood Park received a $100,000 grant from Austin Parks Foundation for implementation and development of the park’s concept plan. Since then the park has served the Georgian Acres neighborhood, but when community members saw a need to further engage neighborhood kids they reached out to APF to ask about getting a Little Free Library installed in the park. Austin Parks Foundation granted the community $800 for the Little Free Library, which was painted by a local tattoo artist installed in November 2024. The Library was commemorated and celebrated by the community on It’s My Park Day Fall!
Projects in the Final Stage of Completion:
Community Impact Grants
Haskell House
APF has granted the Clarksville Community Garden Leadership Team $26,900 to create a heritage garden at the Hezikiah Haskell House that contains plants, herbs and vegetables that Hezikiah Haskell himself would have grown while living there.
Hezikiah, a formerly enslaved man and Union soldier, built the house around 1875 in Clarksville, an early Texas freedom colony. The House is a registered State of Texas Historic Landmark and a City of Austin Landmark. By building this garden visitors deepen their understanding of the house and life in early Clarksville through a deeper connection between the garden and the museum located within the house.
Along with building the garden additional improvements were made to the gourds including removing invasive bamboo and improving irrigation.
Courtesy of the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department
Elisabet Ney Museum
Refresh! Elisabet Ney Museum was awarded a $25,000 grant from Austin Parks Foundation to contribute funding toward a revision of their 2007 Comprehensive Restoration Master Landscape Plan.
This revised plan allows the museum to create a more inviting environment, creating visually alluring grounds that help to re-interpret the historic landscape of Elisabet Ney Museum. In addition to creating a more welcoming space, there are plans to create more connectivity to Shipe Park, which is adjacent to the museum. The new design has also helped with creating realistic maintenance plans as well as continuing to move forward with capital improvements such as the restoration of doors and windows, along with security and lighting systems.
The museum will be closed until summer 2026 for major renovations, but the outdoor space is just as beautiful as the inside and worth checking out in addition to Shipe Park just next door.
Courtesy of the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department
Upcoming Projects:
Community Impact Grants
Roy G. Guerrero Metropolitan Park
Over the past few years, three outdoor basketball courts in the Montopolis community were removed, leaving a big hole for those wanting to play. These courts were particularly popular with the neighborhood youth, negatively impacting access to safe, outdoor recreation. Leaders from the Montopolis community applied for a Community Impact Grant to remedy this great need, and Austin Parks Foundation granted the Montopolis Community Development Corporation $550,000 for a basketball court and shade structure. The court will be located at the end of Grove Blvd. and is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Neighborhood Grants
Dottie Jordan Neighborhood Park
For the past year, a community member with tennis expertise has been offering free youth tennis lessons at Dottie Jordan Neighborhood Park – the only cost was to reserve the court which several families took upon themselves. However, as the lessons became more popular, the court needed to be reserved weekly and the reservation costs became too burdensome. The community surrounding the park did not want to stop the lessons so they sought to ensure they could remain free and accessible by applying for an Austin Parks Foundation Grant. APF granted the group $6,100 to reserve the court for a year’s worth of lessons for up to 30 children per week!
Rosewood Neighborhood Park
The East Austin Youth Foundation sought to create a Wall of Honor at the Britton, Durst, Howard and Spence building in Rosewood Neighborhood Park to honor the late, great community servant L.D. Washington. This Wall of Honor will allow the East Austin Youth Foundation and Greater East Austin Youth Association to recognize men and women who have helped to serve the youth in their community.
The East Austin Youth Foundation was created in 1971 to provide a space for black youth in East Austin to actively participate in youth sports and hold onto the legacy and the mascots of the two recently closed schools: LC Anderson Yellow Jackets and the Kealing Hornet. The East Austin Youth Foundation was a source of unity and pride in the Black community that provided many former LC Anderson graduates a place to actively participate in the community as coaches and mentorship.
L.D. Washington attended L.C. Anderson High School, an all-black high school, and graduated in 1958. He was a member of the 1956 and 1957 LC Anderson State Football Champions and would then attend Huston Tillotson and star on their basketball team.
Washington was known for sharing his capacity to inspire young people through coaching and mentoring with the East Austin Youth Foundation. He inspired many of his players to follow in his footsteps and become coaches with the East Austin Youth Foundation or other organizations.
In 2016, Washington was inducted into the Prairie View Interscholastic Coaches Association Hall of Fame – one of the highest honors granted to Texas Black athletes who excelled during the period of segregation.
Austin Parks Foundation granted the group $4,000 for the Wall of Honor, and the project is expected to be complete by the end of 2025.