Outdoors-Loving Houstonians Toast the City’s Park System, Raise $600,000

Katy Anderson
Outdoors-Loving Houstonians Toast the City’s Park System, Raise $600,000

Event co-chairs Norma and Beto Cardenas

NOW THAT THE storms have rolled through and the weather is blissfully fall-like, this week will be the perfect time to enjoy one of Houston's many parks. An event last week celebrated how parks bring Houstonians together — especially when Covid is in our midst.


The Houston Parks Board's annual lunch took place under a tent on the Avenida de las Americas Plaza, overlooking Discovery Green. The nonprofit has spearheaded initiatives to improve air quality and the bayou system, and Board Chairman Barron Wallace spoke on the group's upcoming projects.

In an interview moderated by Texas Monthly editor Mimi Swartz, the luncheon's featured speaker, Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix, discussed how spending time outdoors positively impacts peoples' emotional, mental and physical health.

The afternoon raised nearly $600,000 to further the Houston Park Board's efforts.

Phoebe and Bobby Tudor

Alisa Weldon, Laura Spanjian and Karla Cisneros

Debbie Elliot Griffith, Susan Bono and Ann Whitlock

Marie Louise and David Kinder

Lina Hidalgo

Lindsey Brown and Chris Shepherd

Janice Weaver and Shannon Buggs

Michael Moore and Kathryn Moore

Susan Christian, Kenneth Allen and Sis Johnson

Mimi Swartz, Florence Williams and Beth White

Parties

Ellington and Gardner

ON DEC. 12 at Jones Hall, the Houston Symphony Orchestra teams up with the 15-member Jazz Houston Orchestra for a special performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite and Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s witty, re-imagined big band version of the ubiquitous, 19th-century classic.

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Art + Entertainment

Leisa Holland-Nelson Bowman, Frann Lichtenstein, Monica Hartland, Roslyn Bazzelle Mitchell

IN WHAT HAS been described as a friend-raiser — as opposed to a fundraiser, since the intimate group of VIP guests weren’t asked to pay to be there — Children’s Memorial Hermann took over a big swath of Memorial Park’s verdant, still new Clay Family Eastern Glades for an over-the-top evening promoting the hospital’s mission and its “world-class orchestra of pediatric specialists,” per a rep. Dubbed Faire la Fête, the fabulous to-do boasted French theme.

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Parties