Guest blogger, Joseph Gonzalez, wrote this feature post about Dalton Smith, Pease Park Conservancy’s Park Operations Coordinator.

Dalton is our longest-serving ops employee, having joined PPC staff in 2021. You can find his friendly face in Kingsbury, tending to the splash pad, riding in the Cushman, and leading volunteer groups!

Joseph is a fourth-year journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin and loves writing about music and nature along with the occasional poem. His work has appeared in Drift Magazine, Afterglow, and the Daily Texan.

At Pease Park Conservancy, our mission is to restore, enhance, and maintain this 84-acre public green space for the sustainable use and enjoyment of all. Our vision is for Pease Park to be known as an accessible urban green space for all, where land stewardship, environmental innovation, and inclusive programming embrace the community's history and inspire its future. By providing your feedback, you help us to make this vision come to life! Our goal is for the Austin community to voice their input to help guide our efforts to preserve and enhance your vision for Pease Park.

Please complete this short survey for a chance to win a $200 gift card!

In late September, we will randomly select one person who completed the survey in its entirety for this prize.

Here is everything you need to know for Pride Picnic on Saturday, June 28th. This post includes important information regarding time, locations, what to bring, what’s expected, ways to donate, and how you can help.

🌳 Parks and public green spaces are incredibly valuable to the fabric of our city, and prioritizing the environment is great for Austin’s future! 

📲 From now until June 23rd, the City of Austin (@austintexasgov) is seeking anonymous feedback to help the Bond Election Advisory Task Force (BEAFT) recommend projects for the potential 2026 Bond package. Help influence how bond dollars are invested, join the conversation, and help shape the future of our city – and its public green spaces!

Visit https://publicinput.com/s14056 to share your input, learn more about the bond process, and ways to get involved!

May is full of obligations for a lot of us and the world can feel pretty heavy. Going for a walk, breathing fresh air, and spending unstructured time with friends or loved ones can help you care for your mental health. Pease Park is always here as a place to escape for a couple hours to forget about your to-do list. And, with mental health awareness month coming up, the Conservancy has organized several events that might help you find your way if you are seeking opportunities to slow down and refill your tank. We hope you’ll join us.

Please be aware of these changes being made to weekend street parking options near Pease Park on Parkway. For more information, please email parking@austintexas.gov or call 512-974-2300.

Malin’s Fountain by Thomas Dambo was built in Pease Park in March of 2024 so we recently gathered community members together to celebrate Malin’s first birthday! Long-View Micro School contributed to the birthday celebration by making Malin a tiara, flowers, a birthday cake, a sash, and an ankle bracelet. They did such a great job creating 18-foot troll sized accessories for her on her big day!

Pease Park Conservancy staff members handed out cupcakes and musicians filled the air with birthday tunes!

Thank you to all of the volunteers and donors who have made it possible for us to share the joy of Malin’s Fountain with the Austin community!

March 30th was declared to be Chuck Smith day, while we honored Chuck at his retirement celebration-- the Chuckstravaganza! It was a special gathering of friends and family at the Tudor Cottage and Terrace. Chuck Smith has had a profound impact during his career, not just on Pease Park, but on the entire Austin community and we wish him the best in his retirement!

We Are Hiring - Native Horticulture Coordinator

Learn more and apply by sending a resume and cover letter to bret@peasepark.org. Candidates selected for an interview will be requested to provide references.

Our First Spring Fling is a Chuckstravaganza!

If you are a Pease Park regular, you probably know Chuck Smith. Chuck has decided it is time to retire this spring, and although he will still visit, his day-to-day contributions will be missed by the entire Pease Park community.

Alicia, our Horticulture Coordinator, manages a composting program for our PPC team. Each week, PPC team members who do not have City of Austin composting bins at their homes bring their compostable materials to Alicia, and she adds them to our Pease Park composting pile.

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! Get your plans set in stone now for celebrating and showing your love for one another.

Learn a new skill together at the Valentine’s Day Waltz on the Terrace - LEARN MORE

Pre-order Roses through PPC for pick up during the week of February 10 - LEARN MORE

Have your love’s name etched into the Ribbon Wall at Pease Park - LEARN MORE

We hope to see you at the park during this season of love!!

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Pease Park Conservancy is hosting its 4th annual MLK Day Donation Drive to help alleviate food insecurity and fulfill basic needs. The MLK Day Drive also offers an important opportunity for local school groups and community members to organize and donate their time through volunteerism toward a shared cause.

SABER MÁS

The Treehouse at Pease Park is one of Austin’s most beloved spaces. Help us fund the replacement of the top net in the Treehouse with a donation today.

DONATE HERE

This season, we want to thank you for loving and caring for our city’s natural spaces and community gathering places. As you celebrate the holidays, we invite you to pause and spend some time in nature.

It has been known that spending time outdoors has profound mental and physical health benefits. After all, we are a part of nature, not outside of it. Whether you lay under the tall sycamores, pull weeds during Pease Corps volunteer events, catalog fall blooms with iNaturalist, or sip your morning coffee in the Treehouse - a little bit of time outside goes a long way in improving your wellbeing.

Join us at a volunteer event, register for one of the last programming opportunities of the season, visit our Pease Rx webpage to learn about outdoor wellness offerings at Pease Park, or read on for other ways to get involved.

Cheerfully,

Pease Park Conservancy

We serve the park so the park can serve you

This statement expresses our commitment at Pease Park Conservancy to protect, operate, and steward this beloved park for everyone. It’s a guiding principle that we think about every single day in the work that we do. Here is how you can help!

Impact. Many of us want to have a positive impact on the world, on other people, on the environment, and on future generations. At times we feel powerless, discouraged, or that our ability to control the way things are moving is limited.  So, it helps to stop and take stock of how you have and how you will impact the world around you, in ways that are unique to you, with your specific set of talents, passions, and influence. As Sharon McMahon (aka America’s Government Teacher) points out in her book, The Small and Mighty, everyday people who are not in the history books have helped shape the course of history and they can serve as inspiration to us all.

At Pease Park Conservancy, our sphere of influence as a team is on a beautiful 84-acre urban green space. It’s easy to imagine the amount of development that would be in Pease Park’s place if it weren’t protected and cared for. We want to share the recent impacts that our team of 12 has had on this park and the community around it, by using our unique talents, knowledge, and drive.

The cycle of life is now evident in Pease Park, as we have recently learned that five Cedar Elms in Kingsbury Commons have reached a point where they need to come down. Each of these trees has experienced loss of major limbs and canopy repair, and while some parts of the trees are still alive, they pose a danger to park visitors and must be removed. They have provided parkgoers with shade and beauty, and birds, squirrels, and bugs with shelter and nourishment. We are sad to see them go.

Fall is officially here and Halloween is just around the corner!

We know all too well how difficult it can be to find a costume that expresses your wit, interests, and unique individuality. As a cherished Pease Park Conservancy volunteer we want to ease your worries and give you some park-inspired Halloween costume ideas!

The catch? Well we would love to see you at the park volunteering in your park-personified costumes - just make sure you can still move around and volunteer in your look!

Read on for upcoming volunteer events, news and blogposts from the 84 acres, and featured programming events.

The Shoal Creek Trail through Pease park has been blocked by debris from two major landslides that occurred in 2018 and 2019. After years of advocacy with the City of Austin from Shoal Creek Conservancy (SCC) and Pease Park Conservancy (PPC), the debris and trail closure remain. Though this is a complex issue, PPC, SCC, and Pemberton Heights Neighborhood Association (PHNA) agree that it remains an important priority to work with the City to provide a safe, accessible restoration of this area of the park and the trail that serves it.