23rd May, 2012 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
There will be a cleaning of Lady Bird Lake June 9th from 9-11 AM. I did this one last time, and thought it was really fun to kayak around the lake looking for trash. Even though there were volunteers everywhere, I still found a lot of trash, mostly Styrofoam along the shores (just watch out for poison ivy!). KAB encourages you to pre-register for this event. Here’s the info from their website:
It’s beautiful outside and our first Lady Bird Lake cleanup of the summer is coming up soon! Join hundreds of volunteers as they have a rewarding morning searching high and low for every last bit of trash and getting to know other lake enthusiasts.
There are several sites around the lake to choose from, whether you’d like to help from the shoreline or from your boat! Each cleanup will end with a prize for the most unusual object found during the cleanup.
On-the-Water volunteers should be 16 or older and be comfortable around water.
Volunteers MUST pre-register for this event, please use the registration link below.
Date: Saturday, June 9th
Cleanup Time: 9am-11am
Location: all around Lady Bird Lake
Registration: Click Here
18th October, 2011 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Today is the last trash run, sponsored by the Livestrong Austin Marathon. You can get a work out in and collect trash to beautify our city, and you get free food at the end. Today’s run meets at Double Dave’s on 3000 Duval street at 6:00. Here’s some info from the website:
“Do you like to run? And do you like our beautiful city of Austin? Want to let these interests mix, combining running with an opportunity to keep our city beautiful? Then join the staff of the LIVESTRONG® Austin Marathon and Half Marathon® for our summer series of trash runs!
In order to give back to the Austin community that we love, the LIVESTRONG® Austin Marathon and Half Marathon® team is organizing groups for our “Run, Recycle, Refuel” events. The goal is to run along different sections of the Austin Marathon® and Austin Half Marathon® race route, pick up waste along the streets, and finish the run by rewarding the efforts of the volunteers with happy hours at a local neighborhood restaurant.
The organizing staff and volunteers will meet at 6:00pm and plan on running from 6:15pm to 7:00pm, wrapping up the run at the restaurant with happy hour until 8:00pm. Each run would cover about 2-4 miles and locations would rotate to cover different neighborhoods on our race routes. Helping the effort will be local businesses, government agencies, eco-friendly advocates, and area runners. Any and all additional support would be greatly appreciated!
So turn on your GU-dar and join our intrepid team of trash runners for a 3-mile trashlek on the Austin city streets—no trasholes allowed! (Don’t understand that last sentence? Check out our friends at Atayne for an explanation.) And to top it off, each of the runs will be followed by a happy hour at one of Austin’s many great restaurants!”
1st September, 2011 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Each winter, usually in February, the Austin Marathon and 1/2 marathon take place. As people are training for the race through the year, Livestrong has a lot of fun events planed to gear up for it, including a series of trash runs, during which you can run along different sections of the Austin Marathon and 1/2 Marathon route, pick up waste along the streets, and end the run with a happy hour at a local neighborhood restaurant. The website says:
The organizing staff and volunteers will meet at 6:00pm and plan on running from 6:15pm to 7:00pm, wrapping up the run at the restaurant with happy hour until 8:00pm. Each run would cover about 2-4 miles and locations would rotate to cover different neighborhoods on our race routes. Helping the effort will be local businesses, government agencies, eco-friendly advocates, and area runners.
It sounds like a lot of fun if you like to run, and may even involve free food and drinks, although the website isn’t specific. I wish I had known about this earlier but the first 2 trash runs of the summer have already passed by. However, there’s one more run scheduled this summer if you’re interested -it’s Tuesday, September 13th starting from Hickory Street Bar and Grill. Hope you can make it!
7th April, 2011 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
This weekend are 2 fun events:
1) The KAB city-wide clean sweep happens this Saturday morning. You can volunteer to help beautify the city. Find more info here.
2) The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is having a plant sale all this weekend. It’s a great place to get some native plants, although there is a cover charge to get in. Here’s some more info on it:
Did your garden suffer from record drought and heavy freezes? Time for a refill. At the Wildflower Center’s Spring Plant Sale and Gardening Festival you can choose from over 300 species of Texas native plants. The event also features artists and authors signing their works in the store, guided walks and talks and tips for your garden from experts.
Spring Plant Sale 2011: April 9 and 10, Members Only Preview on April 8
Hours: Saturday & Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission: $8 adults, $7 seniors and students, $4 UT faculty, staff or students with identification, $3 children 5 through 12, members and children under 5 free.
30th March, 2011 - Posted by katherine - 1 Comment
I have two April events to add to your calendars:
1) Funky Chicken Coop Tour, April 23
If you’ve ever thought about getting some chickens for your backyard, this event is a good opportunity to learn about what’s involved. From their website:
Come join us for the third annual Austin Texas Funky Chicken Coop Tour! Have you been thinking about keeping urban chickens? Do you need coop design ideas? Then this is the tour for you! Hey, this is even for those of you that already have backyard chickens and are thinking about changing your coop design(there’s always room for improvement, right?). Also, feel free to come peck(oops, meant pick 
our brains on raising chickens.
Learn more here
2) Keep Austin Beautiful Clean Sweep, April 9th
The year is the 26th annual clean up of the city held by Keep Austin Beautiful:
Clean Sweep is KAB’s annual citywide cleanup that takes place all over Austin. The first 4,000 volunteers to register get a free event t-shirt and it’s followed by an awesome Volunteer Party and Environmental Fair at Waterloo Park which includes: free lunch, live music, kid’s environmental activities, recycled art, door prizes and more! Last year more than 4,300 volunteers registered to cleanup 129 sites!
Get more info and sign up here.
28th February, 2011 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
This Saturday, March 5 is Austin’s It’s My Park Day. You can sign up here to volunteer at a park near you for a couple of hours Saturday morning. Last March my husband and I volunteered at our neighborhood park and got to help build a trail in the park – it was a lot of hard work but it has been nice all this year to walk along the trail we helped build and show it off to our friends and families (here are some pictures of last year’s trail building). If you use any of the local Austin parks, this is a great opportunity to give back to the city!
17th January, 2011 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Keep Austin Beautiful is having an organized cleanup of Lady Bird Lake the Saturday before Valentine’s Day. Here’s some info from their website:
It’s almost Valentine’s Day and what better way to show your love of Austin and Lady Bird Lake than by helping get it all spruced up in time for Valentine’s Day? Countless romantic walks, first kisses, and even proposals have happened at the lake and nothing says romance like Styrofoam floating on the water. Well not really, so let’s clean it up before the big day!
Volunteers will have a rewarding morning as they search high and low for every last bit of trash and get to know other lake enthusiasts. On-the-Water volunteers should be 16 or older and be comfortable around water.
Date: Saturday, February 12th
Time: 9am-11am
Location: all around Lady Bird Lake
Registration: CLICK HERE
Website: www.KeepAustinBeautiful.org/LadyBirdLake
Cleanup Sites Led by: Austin Standup Paddleboarders, Expedition School, Green Feet Fitness, Little Helping Hands, Surfrider Foundation
If you’d like to donate a prize for our fantastic volunteers please email Jessica@KeepAustinBeautiful.org
26th August, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
I got this information from the Sustainable Food Center – basically you can take 30 hours of hands-on training to learn how to restore wildlife habitat in Austin, learning about things like native plants and invasive species, and in return for the training you do 30 hours of community service using the skills you’ve learned, although there is also a $40 training fee. I kind of want to do it, but if you sign up you have to be able to attend all of the classes, and there are a few where I’ll be out of town. Below is all the info I was emailed:
The 2010 National Wildlife Federation Habitat Stewards Training application process is now open! Join the National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) nationwide team of volunteers who serve their communities as Habitat Stewards™.
The City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) and NWF, in partnership with Travis Audubon Society, are offering a specialized training to teach you how to help others create and restore wildlife habitat in backyards, schoolyards, and other private and public areas.
Training Topics Include:
Native Plants for Wildlife
Invasive Plants & Habitat Restoration
Attracting Birds & Butterflies
Landscape Design Principles
Habitat Stewards Receive:
· 30+ hours of intensive, hands-on training
· A comprehensive training manual including regional resources
· Advice and practical training from local conservation professionals
· Field trips and hands-on educational sessions with community members
In return for training, volunteers must provide 30 hours of service to NWF within one year of the training. Four of those hours must be spent volunteering with Austin PARD. Project examples include: helping neighbors transform their landscapes to benefit wildlife, writing an article for a local newspaper, distributing habitat information at a local festival or leading an invasive plant removal project.
Training fee: $40.00
All classes must be attended!
Thursday Sept. 9 6:00pm-9:00pm
Saturday Sept. 11 9:00am-3:00pm
Thursday Sept. 16 6:00pm-9:00pm
Saturday Sept. 18 9:00am-3:00pm
Thursday Sept. 23 6:00pm-9:00pm
Saturday Sept. 25 8:30am-12:00pm
Thursday Sept. 30 6:00pm-8:30pm
Saturday Oct. 2 8:30am-12:00pm
Registration deadline is August 27, 2010. Enrollment is limited. Application process required. Must have Austin address to register. Cancellation policy applicable, see website for more details: http://www.cityofaustin.org/parks/wildlifehabitat.htm.
11th August, 2010 - Posted by carsi - No Comments
Help protect our water! The city is recruiting volunteers to mark storm drains in an effort to remind people not to allow pollutants and trash to go down the drain. To get involved, follow these steps:
Decide on an area of Austin you’d like to mark (or they can assign an area)
Determine the number of volunteers and an event date.
Call 974-2550 to request kits.
For individuals under the age of 18 years old, turn in a liability release form.
Schedule a time to pick up the kits from City of Austin, Watershed Protection Department office at 505 Barton Springs Road, 11th floor (map).
Storm drain Marking volunteer coordinator will train event coordinator on marker installation.
Volunteers must record drains marked on the map provided.
After the event, return all materials and marked maps (including number of drains marked) to City of Austin within 30 days.
26th July, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Check out this local non-profit called the Green Corn Project, which I heard about on KUT today. Green Corn’s website explains that it is:
a grassroots, volunteer-run organization dedicated to helping Central Texans in need grow their own organic vegetables. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, GCP installs organic food gardens for elderly, low-income, and disabled community members as well as for elementary schools, community centers, and shelters in underserved areas of Austin. We turn unused land into garden beds that provide food, education, and a sense of accomplishment and pride for all involved in their creation and maintenance.Since 1998 GCP has helped more than 160 gardeners and their families claim—or reclaim—their gardening dreams. Our goal is to create lifelong gardeners, so we actively support our gardeners for two years through four growing seasons. Because we return to refurbish those beds for a total of four seasons, we have actually planted more than 640 seasonal gardens.
GCP has several fall volunteer opportunities that we will update you on once registration opens up – sounds like a very great organization!
21st June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Check out this KUT article about Lady Bird Lake cleanups, which states:
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has a lot of people thinking about water pollution, but you don’t have to go to the Gulf to help clean America’s coasts.
Bill Morris is with the Surfrider Foundation. He helps organize clean ups of Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin. On Sunday he was out with volunteers filling trash bags with floating litter.
“All the rivers and streams in Texas drain ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico,” said Morris, “and since we’re trying to protect the coast here, this is a great place to start.”
The Surfrider Foundation is just one group that has joined the nonprofit Keep Austin Beautiful to organize the cleanup every two months.
The article notes that the next cleanup is August 14th
picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/gttexas/
12th March, 2010 - Posted by carsi - 2 Comments
I love Casa de Luz. Organic, vegan, macrobiotic–so green and healthy! My friend Kerry introduced me to this place by having her birthday celebration there last year, and I was instantly impressed. So the way it works is you walk in during their set hours (6-8:30 for dinner), pay a set fee ($11.09 for dinner and lunch, $6.47 for breakfast), and you get whatever they’ve cooked up that day. And it is usually something really awesome. They take care to provide you with a very balanced meal consisting of soup, salad, and an entrée plate with grains, greens, veggies, beans, and pickled vegetables. This is how healthy they are: “our grains are soaked overnight, we avoid foods containing gluten, no sugar or artificial ingredients are added, we use genuine whole foods, campus-grown herbs (when we can), sprouts grown in-house, prepare meals accordingly with the seasons, triple filter our water to remove fluoride, and use natural cleaning products.” Not much more you can ask for!
Their menu changes daily, so check their website before heading over there if you want to see what you’ll be getting. The meal is so filling and delicious, and the soup and salad are unlimited. Nobody I went with needed more food, but if you would like one more serving, all you have to do is ask, although I think they would prefer that not too many people request seconds, since they have a limited supply.
In addition to this tasty healthy food, they also have yoga and tai chi classes and classes about massage and relaxation. If you can, check out the free yoga class on Friday afternoons. Also, you can volunteer to help make the food in exchange for a free meal.
8th March, 2010 - Posted by katherine - 1 Comment
I was able to help out for a few hours at Austin’s It’s My Park Day – it was a lot of fun and we’ll let you know when the next park day happens.
Here’s a picture of some trail building in progress
And here’s a picture of a completed trail
Check out KUT’s coverage of the event here. Over 2,000 people volunteered!
23rd February, 2010 - Posted by carsi - 1 Comment
It’s My Park Day, put on by the Austin Parks Foundation, is coming up on March 6, 2010, and it’s a great way to volunteer to help make Austin greener. The goal is to clean up and improve Austin parks and green spaces. There are 59 park improvement projects and they need 3,000 volunteers. Find out more info and register to volunteer at a park near you here.
