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Glenwood Park spans about 37 acres of land in Fort Worth‘s Historic Southside neighborhood. More often than not, Fort Worth residents drive by without realizing the plot of land is home to a park.“It’s a pretty large park for people not to know it’s even here,” Texas Christian University nursing professor Gina Alexander said during an Oct. 19 cleanup. “We really need to bring this park up to par.”While the park needs work, cleanup efforts have helped turn around Glenwood’s image and presence in the Southside neighborhood. “They didn’t know that this park was so beautiful,” said Alexander. The densely wooded northeastern portion of the park was once entangled with brush and inundated with trash before the Fort Worth Climate Safe Neighborhood Coalition, officially established in May 2022, began hosting cleanups twice a year. TCU faculty, Southside residents and other community groups make up the coalition. Thanks to a $60,000 grant awarded to the city’s Parks & Recreation Department in September 2022, the coalition was able to clear out a heavily wooded area, according to Scott Chormicle, the department’s assistant field operations supervisor. During the coalition’s first cleanup event in April 2023, 23 tons of trash were collected. In the second cleanup event that year, 17 tons were collected. Families, Texas Christian University Students, and residents assisted the Fort Worth Safe Climate Neighborhood Coalition in a cleanup event at Glenwood Park Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (Nicole Lopez | Fort Worth Report)“I don’t see as much (trash) now,” said Chormicle. “The quality of the park has improved a lot.”The Environmental Services Department also partnered with parks staff to support the work going into Glenwood. During a September 2023 cleanup, the two departments gathered 60,000 pounds of trash. “We have made a significant amount of improvements to be able to get (Glenwood) to where it is now,” said James Walker, Historic Southside Neighborhood Association president. Cleanup efforts don’t end there for the coalition. The parks department hopes to win a $100,000 grant that would go toward cleaning the heavily-wooded and littered southwestern portion of Glenwood. As for the park’s development, the coalition and residents are still meeting with architects to finalize Glenwood’s master plan, a process that started in March 2023. That includes flood planning due to the area’s flood plains and creek that runs through the park. As a result, the neighborhood association introduced the city’s stormwater management department to discussions with architects. Glenwood Park’s playground will be demolished to make ready for a new play area by January 2025. (Nicole Lopez | Fort Worth Report)Meanwhile, the neighborhood association and Southside residents continue to uphold their original ideas for the park: a new playground, basketball courts, pavilions and other amenities in hopes of drawing families. “We just need more amenities in the park, so that way the community and surrounding communities can come out,” said Walker.He says the neighborhood can expect to see the new playground in January 2025, following demolition of the old playground. He also looks forward to the park’s new trail system. “Once the park actually gets to what we all have envisioned, then I think it’ll be utilized a lot more,” said Walker. The park’s revitalization is especially important when it comes to residents spending time outdoors as a means to making healthier choices, said Alexander and fellow TCU nursing professor Vicki Brooks. To support this cause, Alexander and Vicki Brooks created RxPLORE in 2019. The program aims to help prevent and treat illness by giving participants a “prescription” to spend more time outside and in nature. “If the idea is prescribing outdoor space, we wanted to make sure we had an infrastructure for everyone in Fort Worth to be able to say, ‘This is a really valid prescription,’” said Alexander.RxPLORE, a program that refers patients to spending time in nature, provided health and wellness information to residents at a Glenwood Park cleanup on Oct. 19, 2024. (Nicole Lopez | Fort Worth Report)Alexander and Brooks were also driven to establish RxPLORE by the fact that residents of the 76104 ZIP code, where Glenwood resides, reported the lowest life expectancy in Texas, in a 2019 UT-Southwestern study. In the past three years, nonprofit groups dedicated significant funding to address racial and health inequities in the area. Historic Southside is also at the center of an urban village project and other anticipated investment from the city.  RxPLORE has helped draw out more Southside residents not only to spend time in nature but also to take advantage of learning opportunities, said Alexander. The program members aim to educate the community by discussing important issues such as vaccines, first aid for severe wounds and awareness of mass and school shootings. “We try to educate them, for sure,” Brooks said. “We want everyone that lives around here to come out of their house and be over here.”Cleaning up the park has made Glenwood a safer place for families and children to spend their  free time, Brooks said. “Even when (the coalition) is not here, we want them to be able to come here and enjoy the park,” she said. Alexander said a remaining roadblock for residents is park accessibility. More people may visit Glenwood when development brings more parking lots and access points to the land. The final master plan is expected to be presented to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board in February, said Patrick Vicknair, a city parks planner. He expects the board to consider approving the plan at that time. The master plan will be added to the 2026 bond election, when voters can determine how much funding will go to the city’s parks department, including park improvements and community center renovations. The parks department requested $516.5 million for the 2026 bond program, according to an October city staff report. Nicole Lopez is the environmental reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at nicole.lopez@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.