Welcome to the Milwood Neighborhood Association - Austin, Texas 78727

April 21, 8 AM – 2 PM, Austin High Parking Lot
With the increased awareness of identity theft, many people know they need to dispose of personal records in a way to insure that others can’t find and misuse the information. The City’s Solid Waste Services Department is providing an opportunity to families and individuals to bring up to five file boxes of paper for FREE on-the-spot confidential shredding. Mobile shredding trucks will be provided by Austin Shred, Centex Shred, and Iron Mountain. The objective is to help with home records management, identity theft protection while publicizing the value of Records Management and Recycling

City of Austin has reviewed the streets in our neighborhood and determined that a 25 mile speed limit should be in effect for several. Crews should be in the area installing the new 25 mph speed limit signs as soon as they can fit it into their schedule. The work will be done during the daytime only and will not impact traffic flow in the neighborhood. Information on which streets specifically will be affected has been requested.

We have a new clean look, an easy to manage interface, and an ability to easily post information to the web. Thanks so very much to Ed and Lara for their hard volunteer work on this project. We plan to use the website for more useful and rapid information than we have every provided in the past. Please contact with questions or comments. We think it’s going to make things much easier and more useful for everyone we hope you find it useful!

If you’re like me, you were very perplexed (and somewhat worried) about why the roads were being blocked off by police cars in our neighborhood that Sunday morning in December. However, it wasn’t Sunday afternoon until word spread that a family in our neighborhood, the O’Donnell’s, had been selected to be the latest recipients of a new home courtesy of ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition. For a week the neighborhood was buzzing with activity. There were many stories of neighbors helping out. When asked what she thought about Extreme Makeover coming to Milwood and her participation, 5-year old Jackie Meisel said, “It was good, it was great, I loved it! And me and Kallie and Chelsey got to hold a sign!” Be sure to tune in to ABC on February 18th to watch the O’Donnell’s get their new home. Below is a first hand account from the O’Donnell family on their experience and a look at some of the numbers from Extreme Makeover Home Edition:

A Letter from the O’Donnell Family, by Jeanette O’Donnell
When we were chosen for Extreme Makeover Home Edition, my family never realized the result of the experiences we were about to begin. From the day Ty Pennington and his crew knocked on our door until the day we saw our beautiful new home was a whirlwind of activities. We were temporarily side-tracked with a wonderful vacation in Crested Butte, CO. The instructors and therapists at Adaptive Sports Center treated our children like family and we were all skiing by the end of the week.

The most exciting day for our family was the day we arrived to our new home. December 17, 2006. We were filled with anticipation and could barely contain our emotions. In the limousine, as we made our way down Hawkshead Dr., we could hear a dull, roaring sound. We could not make out what the sound was. As we got closer to our home, the limousine driver lowered the back window. Suddenly, the dull roar became loud, thunderous yelling and applause. A sound my family will never forget. It was the sound of love and support from all of our friends, teacher’s and neighbor’s.

We have lived in Milwood for 15 years. We have lived in 3 houses in the neighborhood. We stayed in Milwood, mainly because of Summitt Elementary and their amazing teacher’s. Our children have thrived at Summitt and are accepted there with open arms. We stayed in the Milwood neighborhood, because of the safe feeling I have here for my family. The children can play outside with their friends. I can walk safely around the neighborhood. All of our community watches out for each other. This was never more evident to our family than on the day we returned. Hopefully, we will be able to live in Milwood forever.

Thank you Milwood. Thank you Neighbors….your kindness and love will stay with our family.

The O’Donnell Family