How to build a neighborhood playground: recommended resources at KaBOOM! by Lisa Palmer

in Asset-Based Community Development, community engagement, Place-based communities, Psychology

Seventh in our Best practices in Community Empowerment series.

Lisa Palmer (@lattman) is Director for Corporate Partnerships at KaBOOM! where she encourages corporations to participate in making kids’ dreams come true by building the kind of playgrounds that inspired her to play, and dream, as a child.

Play Matters - Great ideas and examples for developing public partnerships around ensuring that children in communities nationwide have access to great places to play.

KaBOOM! Online Trainings – Online trainings and resources that teach folks a variety of topics about play, including how to build a playground from scratch to how to advocate for play in their community.  Trainings may also feature community gardens, working to Save Play, etc.

DIY Planner at kaboom.org – The comprehensive sections of the KaBOOM! Toolkit are designed to walk you through the process of how to create a community-build playspace. From fundraising to volunteer recruitment, the Toolkit can help you take your project from start to finish with over a decade’s worth of KaBOOM! knowledge, advice, and best practices in building playspaces.

The Toolkit is designed to work hand-in-hand with the KaBOOM! Project Planner. The new planner gives you a free Web site that helps you Plan each step of your project, Communicate with your team, Recruit local volunteers, Raise money, Get free advice from the professional playground builders at KaBOOM!, Connect with a community of people like you who are building playspaces around the country.

Happy building!

Next up: Julian Dobson

KaBOOM! Playground Build in West Oakland

in Asset-Based Community Development, community engagement, Place-based communities, Psychology

Some of my pictures, videos and tweets from the KaBOOM! Playground Build Day at Wade Johnson Park and the Oakland School Police HQ, Acorn & Lower Bottoms neighborhoods, West Oakland.

From an introduction by Carletta Starks, one of the principal organizers of the event:  Why Wade Johnson Park: OUSD Police Services Chief, Pete Sarna, recognized that the children in the area did not have a playground or other activities to keep them busy, and identified Wade Johnson as a Park that could be developed for the children in the area. Chief Sarna contacted KaBOOM! and worked with the City of Oakland Redevelopment Agency to get accepted as a site for a KaBOOM! Project. The site was approved, and KaBOOM! and its funding partner, Foresters, began the process that led up to Build Day.

Who is KaBOOM!: KaBOOM! is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving play and fighting the Play Deficit by ensuring that every child has a great place to play within walking distance.

Live tweets with pics here: scroll down to April 30, from 8AM to 3PM

Some Photos

Some Video

See also: KaBOOM! – Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Play; Foresters post-event press release; More photos, from Yuan Zhu.

Community roundup: Playgrounds for kids, teens, seniors; welcoming troops and refugees

in Asset-Based Community Development, community engagement, Place-based communities, Psychology

City residents take part in a pilot project to live longer, better lives

TwinCities.com – Could Albert Lea be a new Blue Zone? For the past 10 months, the southern Minnesota town has tried to adopt the lifestyle habits of such places as Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; and Icaria, Greece, dubbed ‘Blue Zones’ because residents live extraordinarily long and healthy lives. Under something called the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project, sponsored with a $750,00 grant from United Health Foundation, Albert Lea was chosen for a pilot project to see whether a typical small American town could become a Blue Zone, too.

A team effort builds Houghs Neck playground

The Patriot Ledger – With the help of more than 200 volunteers, the 2,500-square-foot playground on Brill Field in Houghs Neck was built in one day – Thursday. Volunteers from the Houghs Neck Community Council, Home Depot and the non-profit organization KaBOOM! worked from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., creating a garden and and a fenced-in play area and spreading wood chips.

Chat ‘n Chews provide brainstorming sessions for city revitalization group

The Parthenon – Create Huntington, a grassroots organization focusing on the revitalization of the city, relies on the public, not city officials, for ideas on how to make Huntington a better place. The group hosts weekly Chat ‘n Chews, a time for members to gather and discuss potential projects and ideas. “The idea is that anybody can come and bring an idea they’re passionate about and try to get other people to join in with their passion,” said Carter Seaton, Create Huntington volunteer.  Many of the projects Create Huntington has implemented got their start at Chat ‘n Chew sessions. Projects such as the dog park, Trees for Tomorrow and the Adopt-a-Block program were brainstormed in Chat ‘n Chew meetings.

Learning center for refugees opens on Syracuse’s North Side

The Post-Standard – “As soon as we opened the door, we knew it would be like this, based on the research,” Yusef Soule said. He is one of six friends who created the center to serve the neighborhood refugee population. They’ve done it, Soule said, with money from their own pockets, help from their families and nothing but volunteer labor. The majority of the students are refugees from Burma, Iraq and Somalia, but, like the sign on the doors says, all are welcome, he said. The organizers didn’t want to step on toes or duplicate services and researched what the community needed most, he said. “Because we don’t want to hand out, we want to hand up and get them going and giving back to the community,” he said.

Soldiers home from Iraq get big welcome in Irvine - Orange County Register – A support battalion returns to Irvine’s Camp James. Video by Lenin Aviles

Volunteerism is Archambault’s only hobby

South County Independent – The wall beside Marc Archambault’s Wakefield desk tells his life story, even when he doesn’t want to. He’s red in the face, slightly embarrassed. A legion of his friends have nominated him for the South County Independent’s Independent Spirit Award. “Did I apply for this?” he recalled saying when he found out he was one of three people selected. It’s nice, he said, but he does what he does – volunteer, tend to family, work ceaselessly – because that’s where his gladness grows.

School goes beyond sports, music with clubs

The Indianapolis Star – The after-school clubs on Wednesdays at Washington Community School include cooking, fitness and music production. Dancing, swimming or drama on Thursday. Movies, video gaming and jewelry-making on Fridays. During the week, students attend poetry slams, tutoring sessions, discussion groups and personal finance lessons. Every Friday, the Urban Explorers group heads out on field trips. It’s part of a coordinated effort by the school and neighborhood groups to infuse after-school clubs into the school — one the school says pays off in giving kids more connections to school.

More Ways to Make Friends

World of Psychology – Earlier this year, World of Psychology contributor Therese Borchard wrote a popular entry entitled, “10 Ways to Make Friends.” Inspired by her advice and based upon my own experiences throughout life, I present to you another 10 ways to make friends in your life. No matter what method you try, making new friends requires something I can’t give you in this article — courage. It takes courage to go out and actually take a leap of faith by introducing yourself to someone new and taking a chance you may be rejected. That’s why smaller groups are almost always easier — you can figure out who might make a good friend in such group situations.

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KaBOOM! – Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Play

in Asset-Based Community Development, community engagement, Place-based communities, Psychology

Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology at Boston College. He has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology; published articles on innovative teaching methods and alternative approaches to education; and is author of Psychology (Worth Publishers), an introductory college textbook now in its 5th edition.

Peter Gray

In Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Play, Psychology Today columnist Peter Gray asked his readers to help him develop a proposal to build a neighborhood play and learning center “that could serve as a model that communities everywhere might emulate”. I said I’d help, and after putting in a few hours, recommended that he check out KaBOOM!, a nonprofit founded by Darell Hammond, who studied under John Kretzmann, Director of the Assets Based Community Development Institute (ABCD Insitute) at Northwestern University.

A 2008 study authored by Deborah Puntenney found that “when implemented appropriately, the KaBOOM! Community-Build process creates a lasting impact on the communities it partners with, both in terms of building capacity, enhancing community pride and cultivating leadership, as well as enhancing the play experience of neighborhood children.” Dr. Puntenney’s researchers conducted site visits and telephone interviews with 110 playspace builders, and reported that:

  • Nearly 100% believe that their KaBOOM! playground positively impacted the quality and quantity of children’s play
  • 94% believe that their playground project helped strengthen relationships among neighborhood residents and among community partners
  • 91% said that the KaBOOM! Community Build model and tools work

The KaBOOM! model (Road Map) comprises eight steps:

  1. KaBOOM! Road MapResearch – Why play matters, the “community-build model,” benefits of a community build model, play equipment appropriate for specific ages, abilities, and types of play, playground safety hazards in old equipment, make the case for a new, community-built playground.
  2. Conceive – Create a project vision and mission statement, form a planning committee, choose a playground site, choose a surfacing and equipment vendor, estimate the project budget, establish a project timeline, create a fundraising strategy.
  3. Organize – Organize and hold the first playspace meeting, start fundraising, finalize planning committee teams, determine the necessary site preparation, create a project website.
  4. Design – Holding a Design Day, working with an equipment vendor to select a design, press materials and media involvement, accelerating youth involvement through the Design Day and service learning projects.
  5. Coordinate – Recruiting Build Day volunteers and captains, creating a contingency plan for bad weather and emergencies, mapping the build site and the Build Day “matrix,” creating a maintenance plan with the landowner and staff, leveling the site and removing old equipment.
  6. Energize – Planning final fundraisers, writing and sending out a media advisory to notify local newspapers, radio, and TV stations, ordering side project materials, confirming delivery schedule for equipment and surfacing, training build day captains.
  7. Build – Equipment and surfacing delivery, organizing materials one to two days before the Build Day, motivating volunteers, rehearsing the ribbon cutting ceremony, taking pictures of the site and securing the area.
  8. Maintain – Sending official thanks you’s, starting your maintenance program, hosting a final planning meeting, supervising, playing and enjoying, RALLY!-ing for play.

The website’s toolkit provides resources (including samples) for every step on the map, including pre-planning, community involvement, volunteer recruitment, fundraising,  construction, and maintenance.

KaBOOM! also provides free online training, and a Project Planner: a free website that aims to help you plan each step of your project, communicate with your team, recruit local volunteers, raise money, get free advice from the professional playground builders at KaBOOM!, and connect you to a community of people like you who are building playspaces around the country.

KaBOOM! Project PlannerClick here to read news articles on KaBOOM!