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

Position Wine Cafe

STARTING TODAY, AUG. 1, through Sept. 4, restaurants rally the community to do good while eating well during Houston Restaurant Weeks founded by the late Cleverley Stone, and carried forth by her daughter, Katie Stone. For a month-plus, restaurants offer prix fixe menus and donate a portion of the proceeds to the Houston Food Bank. Come hungry for multi-course brunch menus ($25), lunch ($25), or dinner ($39 or $55) available for dine-in and take-out. Read on to learn about some favorites and snatch reservations!

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Food

The 2023 Meta-Four team (photo courtesy of Writers in the Schools)

BIG NEWS! ON July 22, Houston youth poetry team Meta-Four won the national championship in the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival, which took place in San Francisco. It’s a first-time first-place win for the team, which in previous incarnations, has always done well competing against other teenage teams from around the globe in semi-final slam bouts. This year, the top four teams — representing Houston, New York, Nashville and Sacramento — competed in four rounds of spoken-word performance in the historic Herbst Theater for the finals. Houston, we’re proud to say, took the top spot.

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