A recent city park cleanup hosted by Texas Rising had attendees questioning what changes could improve the park’s infrastructure.
Last April, the Del Mar and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi chapters of Texas Rising adopted Doddridge Park through the city’s Adopt a Park program. The park is located at the intersection of Doddridge Road and Ocean Drive and runs along the bay. The groups host monthly cleanups every second Thursday of the month.
Multiple volunteers had to dodge large potholes, or park in neighborhood streets to reach the park. Texas Rising Advocacy Field Organizer Jazymene Evans said the park’s parking lot is causing issues when more than a few cars are present.
“There was one of the park cleanups where I had to park somewhere else and someone had to give me a ride over here,” Evans said. “Because we had so many cars here, we couldn’t park here, and because of the giant crater we can’t utilize our entire parking lot.”
Texas Rising is hoping to bring the issue to the Corpus Christi Parks and Recreation Department to get the parking lot fixed. In the meantime, they are still inviting volunteers for their monthly park cleanup events.
Texas Rising is a project through the Texas Freedom Network, a non-partisan nonprofit led by college students all over Texas. The program promotes youth leadership development and training opportunities, grassroots and digital organizing and focuses on issue advocacy. They also prioritize voter registration and voter turnout among young adults by organizing through college campuses.
Park cleanups at Doddridge Park for the fall semester are set for 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct 8; 4-5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov 12; and 4-5:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10. For more information and updates on the Del Mar Texas Rising chapter, check out their Instagram page at @texrisingdelmar.
