The Trust for Public Land in Action: 2020 C E L E B R AT I N G W HAT YO U M A D E P O S S I B L E IN TEXAS AND BEYOND
Thank you so much for partnering with us in Texas! Close-to-home green spaces are vital to communities in today’s rapidly changing world. From the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout to the ongoing realities of systemic racism, the last twelve months have been filled with challenges new and old. But like Texas wildflowers in bloom after a spring storm, the year has held moments of hope demonstrating the power of great parks and green spaces to transform communities from the ground up. One such moment was on June 30, when we joined leaders from Dallas’s South Oak Cliff neighborhood to break ground on the Alice Branch Creek Healthand-Wellness Greenbelt. For years the South Oak Cliff community has wanted to transform this creek into an anchor asset for their neighborhood, improving health, wellness, education, and safety. The groundbreaking ceremony was a celebration of the unique and profound ways close-to-home green spaces are helping communities overcome the challenges of 2020.
Guided by our new strategic plan, we are continuing to advance our land-for-people mission—and our work has never been more important. Our impact is not only the creation of great parks, public lands, trails, and green schoolyards, it’s also the strengthening of the social and civic, personal and emotional connections upon which our communities depend while addressing the most pressing problems across the country—climate, health, and equity. Over the next five years, we aim to accelerate the transformative impact of our mission—impacting 300 communities with our work and improving the lives of 85 million people nationwide. Now more than ever before, parks are cornerstones of health, vitality, and resilience for Texas and the U.S. With your help, we are rising to the challenges of this unprecedented moment. Across our state, we are bringing parks and green spaces where they’re needed most, from South Oak Cliff to the Texas Hill Country’s spring-fed creeks. Thank you!
JASON FLOWERS
Glendale Park Dallas, TX
Cool School Community Parks Community is at the center of our new strategic plan. For much of the year, parks have been one of the few public places open for people to gather as a community, making our efforts to transform 20 Dallas public school campuses into green schoolyards all the more important. In February, we joined our partners at the Texas Trees Foundation, students, teachers, and nearby residents to create community-oriented plans for new parks at the first six Cool School Community Parks. As the coronavirus pandemic began to spread, we realized we would need to quickly develop new strategies to continue to engage these communities safely from a distance. By March, we were in a new paradigm of working from home and remote learning. Although the pandemic has required us to utilize different tools for engaging communities, the fundamental principles that we’ve relied upon for decades remain the same: connect with neighbors to talk, create, imagine, and share their hopes and dreams for their new park. One powerful innovation we have adopted is a web-based
platform that allows us to use the maps, surveys, presentations, and activities we typically bring to traditional in-person engagement events online. To reach community members who don’t have internet access, we hired five local students to help us cross the digital divide. These Community Conservation Fellows spent 12 weeks this summer broadening awareness of the new green schoolyards while gaining hands-on community development experience. Each fellow managed a unique community engagement station at a campus, which included instructions for interactive activities that families can do together at their new park and packets residents can fill out to help share their vision for their neighborhood’s new park. In September, we celebrated the grand opening of the first six Cool School Community Parks; today an additional 20,000 people have a close-to-home park where they can play with their kids, enjoy recreation and exercise, and, most importantly, be together with their community even while we are still apart.
ALL PHOTOS: TPL STAFF
Healthy parks for healthy communities With 65 percent of Texans overweight, and 25 percent physically inactive, our state faces a growing health crisis. Each year we spend billions on healthcare, yet health outcomes remain unchanged. What if there is another way? Spending time in nature—as little as 18 minutes a day—can substantially improve mental and physical health. However, only 48 percent of Texans have a park within a 10-minute walk of home, depriving millions of nature’s vital health benefits. Imagine if everyone in Texas had close-to-home access to high-quality green space and the opportunities for healthier choices. We envision a future where everyone in our state, regardless of zip code, can enjoy a quick jog before work, a picnic lunch break, or a place for kids to play after school. Over the last five years, we have helped Dallas expand access to healthy parks to over 260,000 people. And thanks to your support, we are scaling this work across Texas, including Fort Worth, where we are partnering with the city to conserve and protect its most important natural places.
Working with our Research and Innovation team, we are creating a comprehensive Open Space Prioritization Plan for the City of Fort Worth to identify the highest-priority lands in the city for conservation and recommend policies to fund, acquire, and manage green spaces. Most important, we are seeing the positive impact of our work on people in more ways than statistics. “Imagine how it’s going to feel for those kids to even go to a park, and the elderly who will be able to go in and work out without having to drive,” said Derrick Battie, Community Liaison for South Oak Cliff High School. “When that park opens, it’s going to be a dynamic aspect of health, community engagement, and pride for this entire South Oak Cliff Community.” By working side-by-side with communities to help realize their dreams for their outdoor spaces, we are helping overcome the health disparities that permeate too many neighborhoods across our state. Thanks to your continued support, we are improving the lives of more Texans every day.
JASON FLOWERS
Moorland Family YMCA Dallas, TX
Victory for public lands The Trust for Public Land does more than complete exceptional land protection projects. In partnership with The Trust for Public Land Action Fund, we create, renew, and protect public funding and support for conservation through education, ballot measures, and legislative advocacy.
in direct park funding through a coronavirus economic recovery package. Through our efforts, Texas will be positioned to quadruple public funding to advance conservation and parks across our state, creating jobs and economic activity.
At the federal level, this year brought an exceptional victory. For nearly four decades, we have led the fight for full, dedicated, and permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), the budgetary lifeblood for parks and open space. Through the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA)— signed into law on August 4, 2020—LWCF is now permanently and fully funded, providing $900 million annually for conservation and parks. This means stable and predictable support for big, complex, long-term land conservation projects. GAOA also provides $9.5 billion over five years to address longstanding maintenance backlogs in our national parks, forests, and other public lands.
LW C F I N T E X A S Texas has received approximately $9 million over the past five years.
With LWCF’s permanent authorization, we are continuing our efforts to secure $500 million
In January 2020, we helped the City of San Marcos secure a LWCF grant of $423,500 to purchase a 102-acre community forest within the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, ensuring the water stays pristine for the countless swimmers who visit every summer. We are extremely proud of the work we do to advocate for our public lands—and we will continue to lead the charge to ensure that we all have access to the extraordinary benefits that connection with nature brings. To date, we’ve generated $75 billion for park creation and land protection, leveraging donations to achieve a return of $2,000 in public funds for every $1 donated.
STEPHEN RAMIREZ
Moorland Family YN
Purgatory Creek Natural Area San Marcos, TX
A new community greenspace for South Oak Cliff On June 30, we celebrated the groundbreaking of Alice Branch Creek Health-and-Wellness Greenbelt with the South Oak Cliff community.
designed by South Oak Cliff High School students will be built—a unique park amenity not found anywhere else in Dallas.
For years, teachers and faculty at South Oak Cliff High School worried about the overgrown, littered Alice Branch Creek, located across the street from the high school. But the community had a bigger vision for the creek, a vision to transform it into an anchor asset to benefit the health, wellness, education, and safety of their school and neighborhood.
We can’t wait to open the park to the public next year, but we are just getting started! We’ve also created a community-driven master plan for Judge Charles Rose, Sr. Park, a new 40-acre park we will start building in 2021. These two parks will be the first sites to be realized of the Five Mile Creek Urban Greenbelt, a network of parks and trails connecting across Southern Dallas. Once fully built, countless people will enjoy unparalleled access to the beautiful hills and valleys of Oak Cliff.
Because of COVID-19, we reimagined the groundbreaking celebration as a virtual event. We invited a small group of speakers to join us on-site to help us turn the first shovels of dirt, and broadcast the ceremony online so that the entire community could participate. Although only 10 people were on-site that day, over 350 neighbors and community members were able to join us virtually. With construction now underway, the park is starting to take shape. A walking trail winds its way through the park, providing a safe place for exercise and recreation. A new rain garden with native landscaping will filter runoff and keep the water in Alice Branch Creek clean. Soon, accessible playground and fitness equipment will be installed for people of all abilities. The Sun Club Foundation provided new solarpowered lighting to keep the park bright and friendly. And thanks to a grant from The North Face, a custom rock-climbing boulder wall
JASON FLOWERS
In November 2019, we purchased the 1.8-acre vacant lot which the creek runs through. Throughout the first half of 2020, we worked with our landscape architect to translate the community’s vision for the park into a final design.
South Oak Cliff Dallas, TX
North Texas Advisory Board We are so grateful for our volunteer leaders! Sharon Lyle, Chair Ron Gafford, Immediate Past Chair Tillie Borchers, Vice Chair Lois Finkelman, Secretary Chris Applequist, Member at Large Lucy Burns, Campaign Chair Bill Chaney Trammell S. Crow
Jerome Frank Dr. Michael Horne Heidi Pandya Jim Shipley Tamela Thornton Joan Walne Karl Zavitkovsky
JASON FLOWERS
Alice Branch Creek Groundbreaking Dallas, TX
JASON FLOWERS
Thank you
for joining us as we reimagine and realize the power of land for people to create stronger communities. We couldn’t do it without you.
Join us. The Trust for Public Land creates parks and protects land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come.
tpl.org
Robert Kent Texas State Director 214.957.5527 | robert.kent@tpl.org Devin Girod Director of Philanthropy 214.449.6555 | devin.girod@tpl.org 325 North Saint Paul Street, Suite 2210 Dallas, TX 75201
COVER (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): JASON FLOWERS, DARCY KIEFEL, DARCY KIEFEL, JENNA STAMM, JASON FLOWERS.