PZNA News Release 

AUSTIN PARKS FOUNDATION AWARDS $50,000 TO PARQUE ZARAGOZA NEIGHBORHOOD PARK WITH 2019 FALL COMMUNITY GRANT

Funding will go toward providing shade structures at historic pool 
 
AUSTIN, TX (December 9, 2019) – Parque Zaragoza Neighborhood Park is thrilled to be a recipient of a 2019 Fall Community Grant of $50,000 provided by Austin Parks Foundation through their Austin City Limits Music Festival Park Grants Program. Grant funding will be used for the installation of shade structures around the pool deck and over parts of the historic pool.  

“We are truly grateful for Austin Parks Foundation’s Adopt-A-Park program. It provides community stakeholders a direct channel to the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department to advocate, volunteer and fundraise for needed park improvements,” said Jen Massing Harris, President at Parque Zaragoza Neighborhood Association.  “This grant will help protect the community, summer camp kids and City Aquatic and PARD staff against potential health risks caused from exposure to the sun’s UV radiation. It will also make our pool more desirable by providing cooler areas outdoors and help increase community usability.” READ MORE HERE

PZNA Post Event Review

Loved all the yogis and artists who attended Bliss Kid Yoga's Bliss Bash yesterday and made the day a special one. It was awesome to see the butterfly mask-making idea come to life! 
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Special thanks to thanks to Bliss Kid Yoga and all their supporters, Austin Police Department Region 3 Officer LeClair for bringing the patrol car. Huge success with the kids and best way to teach public safety! And, also a big thank you to Austin Public Library's Book Mobile. 

But most of all thank you to all the ARTISTS of all ages who stopped by to make butterfly masks or tree ID signs which in return filled my heart with BLISS! 

The PZNA hopes to do more Free Yoga and 'Art-in-the-Park' events in 2020! Stay tuned. 

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PZNA News Release 

Bliss Kid Yoga’s 5th Annual Bliss Bash to be held at Parque Zaragoza Neighborhood Park

Free community wellness event to raise awareness of yoga benefits and new AISD After-school Programs 

​Austin, TX, November 5, 2019 – Bliss Kid Yoga, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit dedicated to nurturing community health and wellness by providing both free and affordable yoga and mindfulness programs, announced today its 5th Annual Bliss Bash event will be held in Parque Zaragoza Neighborhood Park on November 16th from 1PM to 4PM. Parque Zaragoza is located at 2608 Gonzales Street, Austin, TX 78702.  READ MORE HERE 

PZNA Community Grant For Pool Canopy Shading 

Would it be extreme to say it is getting hotter here? Whether you believe in Climate Change or not, every year during summer, Austin keeps breaking its own records for hottest and most consecutive triple digit heat wave days. These summer days can be deadly – in 2018, five people died from heat-related illnesses here. 

In fact, this past July on National Heatstroke Day, the City of Austin launched a new Heat Aware resource and information webpage to help educate residents of the dangers of heat related illnesses and provide tips for keeping cool. 

Heatstroke is just one of the many health risks related to too much sun or UV radiation exposure. Skin cancer is another. It only takes one sunburn incident as a child to increase one’s risk of skin cancer. And this year alone, over 75,000 Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer. To put it another way, according to the EPA, one in five Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates one American dies every hour from Melanoma, the most common cancer among adolescents and young adults ages 15-29, which is caused by UV ray exposure that causes sunburn.  

​In addition to cancer and premature aging, other health risks from UV radiation exposure include Immune Suppression (when the body’s immune system is weakened by overexposure to UV radiation) and Eye Damage, such as Cataracts, costing billons in medical care and effecting millions of Americans annually.
 
Fortunately for local residents, keeping cool is part of Austin’s culture through the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Aquatics Department. Some swimming holes are more popular than others due to their assets, including seating, restrooms and most importantly shading.  However, as the City grows, accessibility becomes more of a problem due to increased traffic and overcrowding. City of Austin has many concurrent goals to improve transportation through smart mobility to ensure the City grows sustainably. Therefore, community and neighborhood park pools that are within biking and walking reach are truly critical to the City of Austin’s master plans for a thriving ecofriendly smart city. 
 
In East Austin, built in 1933 during the Great Depression and beginning of the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Parque Zaragoza Neighborhood Park’s Pool is one of the City of Austin’s earliest man-made pools. At the time of the pool’s construction, the accompanying bathhouse/caretakers cottage was built, and was then expanded by the National Youth Association and community volunteers in 1941 to become a two-room recreation center, used until 1996.
 
Since then, only minor repairs have been made to these historical park assets.  The bathhouse has been condemned for years and as a result the pool doesn’t have working restrooms. Additionally, though Parque Zaragoza is known for its heritage Oak Trees, shading around the Pool area is almost nonexistent. These combined reasons led to a decline of the usability of the Parque Zaragoza in preference for others with newer and/or updated assets. 
 
Most importantly, as stated above, is a lack of shading to protect the community-stakeholders, including Parque Zaragoza Recreation Center Summer Camp children and Aquatics staff, from life-threatening and other sun exposure health risks. Even when in the water, a person has the same risks associated to UV radiation. 
 
Our grant application for the Parque Zaragoza Neighborhood Pool would fix the most critical problem the neighborhood pool poses to today by providing impervious shade to protect against UV radiation as well as places around the pool deck and inside the pool water. It would provide cooler areas outdoors and help increase community usability. 

PZNA News Release 

Now Open! Calling All Austin Kids. :-)
New Parque Zaragoza Playscape and Bike Trails too!
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Stay Tuned!

Parque Zaragoza Historic Stroll, Memorabilia Exhibition and Reunion Fiesta - Spring 2020 

PZNA needs your help! We are looking for old Fiesta and Park event programs, family photos taken in the park or at the old recreation center prior to 1996 and also special stories and memories of events that happened in our park and around our Parque Zaragoza neighborhood. 

Afterwards, we will take all digitized Parque Zaragoza history and create a permanent open archive for the community's access for generations to come and provide it to the Austin Historic Center and City of Austin Parks and Recreation Historic Preservation Department. 
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Please email us at [email protected] if you have contributions for the historic exhibition.
History of Parque Zaragoza Documentary Film - We are seeking volunteers to share their childhood memories and/or recollections of notable events that have taken place in our park. 

Parque Zaragoza Photo Scrapbook - We are seeking people to submit photos related to special memories of time spent in the park. These may be included in the documentary but additionally will be added to a scrapbook. ​