The Giving Park –True Story of East Austin’s Park ‘Z’s Unconditional Love for Generations

​By Jackson Papillon, Chief Scoop Blogger, #PZNA Neighborhood Nose

In East Austin we have a park that knows all the old families of our community for she was the first before all others, making this park one of the ‘mothers’ to the others in our neighborhood. Zaragoza Park, or as she prefers, Park ‘Z’, has been giving her unconditional love through the decades from the late 1920s until the present.
 
And like all ‘Giving Mothers’, Z was hostess through the ages for many of our community’s fiestas, holiday and special celebrations. Always available for every occasion. As a ‘Hostess with the Most-ess’, many recall her two and three-day fiestas, community Thanksgiving celebrations, annual neighborhood reunions, amateur league baseball and softball tournaments, summer days swimming and nights dancing to Tejano and Conjunto music performed on the bandstand. 

A very proud mother, she remembers all who have come to visit her, to climb her trees, run and roll on her grass, swing and play on her playground, walk or bike her trails, swim in her pool, play basketball or baseball, BBQ and picnic, perform on her bandstand or simply escape rest in her shade. 
 
If you listen very carefully at dusk and at dawn, you can hear through the rustling leaves in the wind, birds singing and crickets chirping a Z singing the praises of all the names of our community’s families whose hearts and feet have touched her. 
 
Return home to Mother Park Z and show her a little TLC this It’s My Park Day. Register via GivePulse here: https://givepul.se/ypka00
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