News
Grow! is Coming to The Children’s Haven
9/2/2026
TCHA joins Austin’s 2026 Roots & Wings Festival with a day of food, nature, health, and family adventure.
We’re excited to share that The Children’s Haven Association will be part of Austin’s 2026 Roots & Wings Festival!
On Saturday, October 24, our Heritage Garden will become an outdoor classroom and family adventure for Grow! A Food Is Medicine Family Adventure—a free community celebration bringing together nature, healthy food, gardening, and wellness.
Families can get their hands in the soil, plant and learn from expert gardeners, explore herbs and vegetables, discover pollinators and healthy soil, and make their way through our Garden Adventure activities.
Children can take on the Food Detective Challenge, collect stamps along the way, and explore how the food we grow connects with our bodies, our environment, and our community.
And don’t miss our Recipe Tree beneath TCHA’s heritage pecan tree. We’ll be sharing recipes from East Austin families, board members, volunteers, and neighbors—and inviting visitors to add a family recipe of their own.
Community partners will also join us with health, nutrition, gardening, and environmental resources, including free health screenings and hands-on learning opportunities.
And yes—there will be trees! Families will have opportunities to learn about caring for Austin’s urban forest, and tree seedlings and nature materials will be available for participants.
Save the Date
Saturday, October 24, 2026
9:00 AM–5:00 PM
The Children’s Haven Association
1908 Chicon Street, Austin, TX 78722
Free and open to the public. All ages are welcome.
Come plant something. Learn something. Share a recipe. Meet a neighbor. And spend a day growing a healthier, greener East Austin with us.
A Summer Behind the Scenes: The Heritage Gallery Takes Shape
8/25/2026
Something new has been taking shape at The Children’s Haven this summer.
Our East Austin Living History Heritage Gallery is moving from research and ideas toward a real exhibition. This summer, Dr. Olivia Mena joined the project as Curator, working alongside our history and research team, community members, students, and partners to begin shaping how nearly 80 years of TCHA and Black East Austin history will be told.
Behind the scenes, we have been digging into photographs and archives, conducting historical research, developing stories, and thinking carefully about how children, families, and longtime East Austin residents can participate in telling this history.
And now, we have our first storyboard draft.
It is still very much a work in progress—but that is part of the fun. Over the coming months, these early pages will become photographs on walls, oral histories, historic documents, interactive experiences, and stories shared across generations.
Here’s a little peek at what we’ve been working on this summer.
One of the Many Archival Findings
Research Meeting
The East Austin Living History Heritage Gallery is scheduled to open at The Children’s Haven in December 2026.
More behind-the-scenes updates are coming as the gallery takes shape.
We Got it !
8/18/2026
Children’s Haven Association (TCHA) has been selected for a 2026 Food and Climate Equity Grant Award of $3,000 from the City of Austin’s Austin Climate Action & Resilience Office.
TCHA is one of 30 groups receiving funding to support projects advancing food justice, climate equity, and community resilience across Austin.
We are grateful to the City of Austin for supporting our work and look forward to putting this funding into action in our community.
Heritage Garden Camp #3
August 2026 • Children’s Haven Association
On Saturday, August 1, our Heritage Garden came alive with neighbors, children, volunteers, and community partners who gathered to prepare garden beds and plant seeds of what will become a vibrant community garden.
Together, we planted not only vegetables, but also the promise of future harvests, shared meals, new friendships, and lasting community traditions.
Thank You
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us and made this first Heritage Garden Volunteer Morning such a wonderful success.
Special thanks to our Expert Gardener Scott Blackburn, whose knowledge, encouragement, and hands-on guidance helped every volunteer—from first-time gardeners to experienced growers—feel welcome and confident.
Thank you as well to every family, every child, every volunteer, every neighbor, and every supporter who spent their Saturday morning working alongside us. Your energy transformed an empty garden into a place filled with possibility.
Community grows because people choose to show up—and you did.
What We Accomplished
• Prepared and improved multiple raised garden beds
• Planted the first seeds for our fall growing season
• Learned practical gardening skills together
• Shared conversations, laughter, and new friendships
• Took the first step toward building a Heritage Garden that celebrates health, culture, history, and community
Looking Forward
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be watching for those first tiny sprouts to emerge from the soil. Every leaf that appears will remind us that meaningful things often begin quietly.
We look forward to welcoming everyone back as we continue planting, learning, harvesting, cooking, and growing together.
Because Health is Heritage. Heritage is Health.
Children’s Haven Association
Growing Food • Growing Community • Growing Heritage
See you in the garden!
Come and Work with Us!
(7/16/2026, The Children’s Haven Association)
Collective Problem-Solving at The Children’s Haven Association
On July 24, 25, and 26, 2026, The Children’s Haven Association was pleased to welcome Solar Austin’s 2026 Energy Hackathon to our historic East Austin facility. Children’s Haven staff, board members, and volunteers also joined the event, learning alongside participants as they worked together to develop creative solutions to real-world challenges.
The experience showed us the power of collective problem-solving—bringing people with different experiences and skills together to imagine, build, and solve. We hope to carry this spirit into our own intergenerational and youth leadership programs, creating more opportunities for children and young people to collaborate, think creatively, and become problem-solvers in their communities.
We are also proud to support partners like Solar Austin by opening our space to ideas and collaborations that strengthen our wider community.
Oral History Camp
8/23/2025
Honoring a Legacy of Giving: The Ruth and Alfred Dotson, Sr. Community Legacy Initiative
Children’s Haven Association celebrated the Ruth and Alfred Dotson, Sr. Community Legacy Initiative, honoring a powerful example of giving back to the organizations and communities that have shaped our lives.
The initiative encouraged Austin-area residents to include local churches and nonprofit service organizations in their estate planning and charitable bequests.
On April 30, 2023, Children’s Haven welcomed community members to our historic Chicon Street facility for the initiative’s announcement and distribution to estate beneficiaries.
For Children’s Haven, serving Austin communities since 1946, the initiative represents an enduring idea: a legacy is not only what we leave to our families, but also what we leave to the communities that helped sustain us.