Fifth annual Project: Build a Park a resounding success

The fifth annual Project: Build a Park - a partnership between Austin Community College's Office of Student Life and the Austin Parks Foundation that began in 2002 - was held on Nov. 18, giving ACC students, staff, faculty and interested friends the opportunity to help clean up a park and improve on its current state.

For the previous four years, the event was held at the Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Metropolitan Park, which is located near the ACC Riverside campus. This year, the event took place at the Shoal Creek Greenbelt, incidentally located near ACC's Rio Grande campus, instead because construction is taking place at the Roy G. Guerrero Park.

ACC Student Life Communications Coordinator, Lori Blewett, who previously helmed PBAP, said that she had initiated the partnership between ACC and the Austin Parks Foundation as she felt it would be a good opportunity for students to pitch in with the development of the Roy G. Guerrero Park since it had no trails at the time and it was something the ACC community could relate to and be proud of.

Charlie McCabe, the executive director of Austin Parks Foundation, has been very appreciative of the volunteers through ACC. McCabe said that organizing such events allows volunteers to help in the building and restoration of parks "to help draw attention to the problems Austin's parks face," as well as getting the involvement of the community.

"I really enjoy working with ACC," McCabe said, "and I think what's interesting is that ACC has a diversity that you don't get when working with other organizations of people who tend to have more in common with each other."

The Austin Parks Foundation has held 31 volunteer workdays at the Shoal Creek Greenbelt since September 2005. The 2006 PBAP marks the end of more than a year of work at this park. Having focused mainly on the Shoal Creek Greenbelt for that period of time, the Austin Parks Foundation will then shift its focus to yet another park, though work will also continue at the Shoal Creek Greenbelt.

Compared to the brush cutting and picking up of trash in the Roy G. Guerrero Park in the previous years, this year involved the spreading of mulch and the moving of rocks from the creek up to the trails. Native plants will be planted in the mulch. Lindsay O'Connor, who works in the Office of Student Life and was in charge of this year's PBAP, was surprised at how quickly the mulch, totaling 13 truckloads, was spread.

"We thought the spreading of the mulch was going to take the entire duration of the event, but in fact it was the moving of rocks that took up more time," O'Connor stated.

McCabe, who also briefed the volunteers on Saturday about the different tasks on hand, noted that the mulch covered many parts of the park very well. He explained that the spreading of the mulch was necessary because the soil in the Shoal Creek Greenbelt was depleted and hence required tilling.

McCabe divided the volunteers into three groups: two to work on the mulch, and one to work on the rocks. There was another small group to plant wildflower seeds, which consisted mostly of the children who came along. After the spreading of the mulch was completed, which took place from around 9:10 to 10:30 a.m., there was a short break before both the groups working on the mulch joined the group dealing with the rocks.

There were two lines of students formed for the rocks, which were passed from a section of the creek up to the trails, used to create berms for the patches of mulch in order to prevent erosion. It was quite a sight. At noon it was time for lunch, generously donated by H.E.B.

O'Connor said that 150 volunteers showed up this year. This number was slightly less than previous years, which might have been a blessing in disguise. O'Connor noted that some of the volunteers felt the PBAP this year was more organized and had more direction, the successes of which could most likely be attributed to the smaller group.

Many of the volunteers comprised members of student clubs, who are required to fulfill a certain amount of community service hours. Some clubs that were present were the Student Government Association, the Phi Theta Kappa society, and the Physical Therapy Association. O'Connor also mentioned that a good number of volunteers would also came from outside the ACC community.

"We had a very good range of volunteers from different age groups," O'Connor remarked, "The youngest we had was 19 months old." She continued, "There were about 30 high school students attending this event under the College Forward program."

The College Forward program is a program providing college preparatory services to financially disadvantaged students undergoing the transition from high school to college.

In many ways, PBAP this year was different from previous ones. Because of the smaller group as well as location, there was more interaction and camaraderie between the volunteers. Blewett said that PBAP this year had the best weather out of all of them, and that because the Shoal Creek Greenbelt was better known than the Roy G. Guerrero Park, it in turn allowed students to better envision where their work was going.

"I think the event allowed students to see how working together produced a lot of results," Blewett commented. "It really is a family event; we at Student Life really just want the volunteers to have a good time helping out."