Remember folks – parade start time is at 10:30am starting at the Milwood Baptist Church at the top of Cabana, followed by barbeque fare in the Balcones District Park, and the Austin Civic Wind Ensemble performing to give us the best July 4th event in town!

Volunteers are still needed. If you have time to help setup or need to drop something off (table, pop-up canopy… ect.) you can come by the park starting at 8:15am.  If you can help during the festivities, stop by the membership table or find one of the volunteer coordinators.

Thanks for making this a great event,

MNA Board

Volunteers are critical to helping this event run smoothly and we can’t do it without your support.

If you can help in any of the following ways, please contact us or just show up on July 4th and come by the Milwood or Walnut Crossing Neighborhood Association booths and let us know you would like to lend a hand.

• Deliver flyers around the neighborhood
• Can loan a pop-up canopy (we can pickup and return if necessary)
• Can loan a gas grill (we can pickup and return if necessary)
• Help with morning setup
• Help with afternoon break-down
• Help with monitoring the food line
• Help with grilling the food
• just available to help with anything that needs to get done.

Thank you for your support in helping make this a great event.

Yes, I want to be a volunteer!

10:00 am – Parade participants assemble at the Milwood Baptist Church Parking Lot

10:30 am – Parade begins (goes from Cabana to Eton)

11:00 am – Picnic lunch at Balcones District Park

11:30 am – Performance by the Austin Civic Wind Ensemble

As always, we will have plenty of cold drinks, hot dogs, and hamburgers thanks to the generous sponsorships of neighborhood businesses and groups. You can purchase raffle tickets for great prizes. Be sure to renew your neighborhood association dues at the picnic or here.

To pay your dues online (with or without a PayPal account), please click the link in the nav bar above or here. It’s fast, saves postage, and is only $15 per year. Your dues keep the neighborhood informed via our quarterly reminder postcards and, most important, help fund our annual July 4th picnic at Balcones District Park.

So, if you can’t remember when was the last time you paid your dues, they’re probably due!

 A special thanks goes out to all of our volunteers to helped create another fun event for our neighborhoods.  From loaning supplies, to grilling, setting up and tearing down, passing out fliers, baking cookies…everything! – we truly could not pull this event off without your help and support.

 This year, the event will be held on Saturday, July 3^rd. 

 As usual, the parade will begin at 10:30am at the Milwood Baptist Church parking lot. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate in the parade, whether you want to walk, ride, cycle, or whatever… just as long as you’re in the holiday spirit!

• The parade will end at the Balcones District Park where volunteers will be grilling hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings for everyone to enjoy.
• During the picnic we will be holding a general raffle for some great prizes donated by several local businesses. Tickets for the general raffle will be sold for 1 dollar each.  Get a FREE ticket by renewing your neighborhood association dues for $15, or joining for the first time.
• Back by popular demand, the Austin Civic Wind Ensemble will again be joining us to play some holiday tunes.  Bring a buck to throw into a tip jar for them, as they perform for free.  Last year’s consensus was that they made the event “extra special”!
• We’re still looking for volunteers to help with setup, cooking, cleanup, and a few other odds and ends. If you can spare some time to make this event a success, contact us to volunteer.

Parade Route

View Larger Map

We hope to see you there!

This 2009 Picnic is already shaping up to be one of the best as we have just coordinated a special appearance by the Austin Civic Wind Ensemble.  Very exciting stuff!!

As usual we will be holding our neighborhood parade (starting at 10:30am at the Milwood Baptist Church Parking lot) and grilling hot dogs and hamburgers at Balcones District Park where everyone is invited to come out and meet your neighbors and help celebrate the birth of our nation.

In order to ensure a good time for all our friends and neighbors we need your help. The following is what we need to make this a successful event.

1. Volunteers to help with “Day of” setup, Grilling, Food Line Supervision, Clean Up and Tear Down
2. Easy to assemble shade covers or canopies.  The more the better
3. Fold out tables.  Long ones or short ones… we could use both sizes.
4. Large capacity water jugs.
5. Ice chests.
6. 3 barbecue grills. Propane would work best

If you are willing to volunteer for any length of time (if you only have 30mins. to spare we can find something for you to do in that time) or if you are willing to help bring any of the above listed items please use our contact form and select “July 4th Volunteer” and tell us where you can help or call Ed Garaña at 719-4920.

More details to come as we get closer to our celebration.

We talked to several people who were joining us for the first time, even though they’ve lived in the neighborhood for a while, and all seemed to have really enjoyed themselves and were impressed by the large turn out. Hopefully everyone was able to at least meet a neighbor they did not know and that everyone feels a little bit closer as a community.

I personally want to thank all the volunteers who helped during the event – from those that arrived early to set-up, the guys manning the grills, the tireless volunteers that helped serve the food, to those that stayed behind to clean-up and pack everything away. Without the efforts from these great volunteers this event wouldn’t be possible.

We also want to recognize the sponsors of this event. Without their contributions this event wouldn’t have been as great a success as it was.

2008 July Fourth Sponsors

• Harvey Pikoff, Realtor
• Tammy Fariss, Realtor
• H&H Contracting (Karl Hansen)
• Texan Market
• Gift of Serenity massage
• Cold Stone Creamery
• Taco Deli
• La Morada Mexican restaurant
• It’s a Grind Coffee
• Kolache Factory
• Keystone Insurance Services, Inc.
• Take 5, Haircuts for Men
• Top Spa Nails
• Mow Kids
• Sno Biz Snow Cones
• Ruth Wunderlich tutoring

If you have any photos of the event that you wouldn’t mind sharing with us to begin our online neighborhood photo archive please email and we’ll get in touch with you.

• The parade will begin at 10:30am at the Milwood Baptist Church parking lot. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate in the parade, whether you want to walk, ride, cycle, or whatever… just as long as you are in the holiday spirit. View Parade Route Map
• The parade will end at the Balcones District Park where volunteers will be grilling hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings for everyone to enjoy.
• During the picnic we will be holding a general raffle for some great prizes donated by several local businesses. Tickets for the general raffle will be sold for 1 dollar each. Get a FREE ticket by signing in and providing the neighborhood association your email address.
• We’re still looking for volunteers to help with setup, cooking, cleanup, and a few other odds and ends. If you can spare some time to make this event a success, contact us to volunteer.

View Larger Map

(What happens if it rains? Well… same drill as last year. We’ll make the best of it.)

Get the Word Out
In an effort to be maximally frugal, we are asking YOU to help us with the distribution of information about July 4th in the neighborhood. This saves a tremendous amount of postage and gets the word out to your neighbors, and lets us stretch every last dime from your 15 dollar dues. This is new for us, but our friends in Walnut Crossing have done it this way for a long time, so help us on the inaugural effort.

If you can distribute flyers in the next 5 days, come pick up a packet of flyers and sign up for the street that you are committing to do. The flyers and the signup sheet are on the porch at 4103 Dauphine Drive, right now. Come on over.

Passing the Hat
No secret here: the 4th of July event gives us money to operate, through dues payment and raffles. If you appreciate the events we help to make happen in the neighborhood, and the information we try to keep you abreast of, we really ask that you express it right now. You can pay online right here Dues are 15 a year, but any amount more (or less) than that goes straight towards postage, food for events, etc. Your neighborhood association operates completely pro bono, the benefits go back to you.

Pitching In
Able to help with the event? cooking, setup? Have a shade screen you can bring? Dying to make cookies for 300 people? Let us know.

Get Noticed
Do you have a business or a profession that would benefit from exposure to hundreds of people? We are still looking for prizes to be raffled off, and we will recognize your business at the event. We have many repeat sponsors which speaks to the value of the opportunity.

Questions? email us, or call Ryan Lanier at 799-7994