Celebrate Swan Creek!
Swan Creek Park
Celebrate Swan Creek!
Parks Tacoma and community come together April 30 to celebrate new features in Swan Creek Park from trees to trails, and with food, music and all-ages fun.
Tacoma, WA: How do you celebrate Swan Creek Park? Maybe you ride your bike or bring Fido to the dog park. Maybe you admire towering trees and explore trails. You might jump across stumps, connect with ancestral traditions, eat a family picnic. Or maybe you’re there for the first time.
At the Swan Creek Celebration on April 30, Parks Tacoma is gathering the community to do all those things and more at the big east Tacoma park that offers so many ways to celebrate in nature.
Happening from 10am-1pm, the free event aims to celebrate Swan Creek Park as a safe, unique and active place to connect with nature. It highlights the new features funded by over $4 million in City of Tacoma voter-approved 2014 and 2005 bonds, a grant of $720,323 from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office Legacy Grant, and $17,500 from the Greater Parks Tacoma Foundation.
The event is centered around the large picnic shelter in the new area immediately behind Lister Elementary School. Community groups and Parks Tacoma staff will offer fun, hands-on activities in and around the new dog park, trails, paths, picnic shelters, play features, bike tool station, colorful history signage, restrooms and parking lot.
“The community told us they wanted a safe place to play with kids and dogs, to have picnics and events and connect the other areas of the park,” explained Hollie Rogge, Parks Tacoma’ deputy director for neighborhood and community parks. “We’re really pleased to offer all that and more in Swan Creek Park, and to join with community to celebrate it.”
- 10:30 am: Blessing from the Puyallup Tribe, followed by official ribbon cutting with elected officials, donors and public
- 11 am, 11:30 am, 12 pm: Nature walks and a brand-new Agents of Discovery app mission for kids from the Tacoma Nature Center
- 12:30 pm: History walks exploring the park’s layers of culture and history
- 11 am: Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance will host a pump track class from 11 am-12 pm on “How to use the Pumptrack” with basic riding fundamentals.
- 12 pm: Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance will be available for one on one coaching and Q&A Tips and Tricks. All ages welcome.
Additional Activities:
- Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance will hold a work party doing maintenance on the currently-closed Joyride trail. Come to their booth to be guided there!
- Do nature science activities including a nature play area, pavement chalk art, nature bracelet crafting, wildlife observation and more, brought by Wildlife Champions staff from Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium
- Join the City Nature Challenge, a nationwide nature observation challenge to spot and record wildlife in our city
- Meet the CHIP-In park habitat steward, learn about upcoming habitat restoration days and explore the new Washington Trails Association path
- Sign up for Parks Tacoma summer camps, programs and jobs
- Take a guided tree tour of the new red cedar science study planting with Tacoma Tree Foundation and Washington State University Extension
- Borrow a loaner bike from 2nd Cycle and explore the new paths – perfect for kids
- Visit the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance booth and discover the bike trails
- Learn about upcoming litter pickups with East Tacoma Collaborative
- Try loading a bike onto a “bus,” get free bike lights and find which routes serve the park with Pierce Transit
- Find out how Washington Conservation Corps is restoring the upper creek for salmon
- Explore the new four-acre dog park with a four-legged friend
- Dance to music from VT Radio and other DJs
- Eat free food from local vendors
- Connect with your community and the nature around us
Says Park Board President Andrea Smith: “Swan Creek is a really special place, both to Eastside folks and our whole community. It’s so large, and still so wild and natural. We’re so lucky we have such a hidden gem in Tacoma, and a community that loves and cares for it.”
The event will happen in the new park area uphill from East 44th and T Streets. Limited parking is available in the park. Walking, riding, carpooling and transit are highly encouraged.
LEARN MORE: metroparkstacoma.org/swan-creek-park-opening-celebration
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Contact:
Rosemary Ponnekanti, Communications Media Administrator/PIO: [email protected], (253) 345-0948
Photographs are available for media use. Please contact Parks Tacoma: [email protected]