The playground needed refurbishing for a long time and the wait ended March 23 when even rain couldn't stop the 130 or so volunteers from turning the old play place into a 2,500-square-foot, state-of-the-art playground in one day.

The volunteers who tackled the play area at 4200 NW 180th St. came from The Home Depot and the Le Jeune Gardens Homeowners Association. The project ran under the auspices of KaBOOM!, a nonprofit organization that provides playgrounds in neighborhoods throughout the country.

The Home Depot and KaBOOM! hope to create or refurbish 1,000 playgrounds in 1,000 days nationwide. 

 

MARY BUSTAMANTE
Tucson Citizen

They call it their dream playground. And, indeed, the students at Reynolds Elementary have had their fanciful visions incorporated into the new play spot that seemed to magically appear over the weekend.

In January students drew what they'd like to play on and some of their ideas became part of the $60,000 project, which includes a triple slide, a mini-digger, a climbing apparatus, teeter-totters and other items secured on top of truckloads of mulch.

If You Build It, They Will Come. . .

Join our next training-by-phone session, for those who have created or plan to create a child portal. We will meet for one hour, based on attendees' needs.  There is only room for 10 in the training session, so attendance is first come, first serve.

Note: The April 3 session has been postponed and will be rescheduled at a later date. Our apologies for any inconvenience.

A Look Inside Our New Advocacy Strategy

Brian Collier, VP of Marketing and Development, wants to know what would you do if you had the opportunity to sit in on KaBOOM! strategy meetings. Here's your chance to see what we're doing!

Read Brian's blog, and log in to share your ideas.

Nature paths, trees, bricks and boards, old tires and cardboard boxes. This week Dennis Reynolds looks at natural playgrounds and junk playgrounds, and speculates about when the conventional metal and plastic just might be about the best thing around.

Read Dennis' blog, and don't forget to log in and leave a comment!

 

Kathy Nadel, member of the Chester County Mothers of Multiples Club (CCMOMC) in Downington, Penn., tells the story of her community's involvement in building its very first all-accessible playgound. Read More . . .

Do you have a success story to share? Tell us all about it!

 

Gentlemen, start your …playgrounds?  That’s right!  The Home Depot, Joe Gibbs Racing, and KaBOOM! kicked off the second year of the Racing to Play program on March 9 by building a great new playground at the Salvation Army in Las Vegas.  Tony Stewart and his teammates from Joe Gibbs Racing joined the fun, helping build the racing themed playground in just one day! 

Read more, view the photo gallery, and log in to leave a comment!

Click here for the recap and visit our Training Opportunities page.

The best thing about having a blog is the feedback I get from the readers!

Earlier this week, I wrote about play dates, and about how careful we have to be when we send our children to someone else’s house. I got a lot of e-mail, and so many great ideas that I wanted to share some of them with you.

 

Wielding wheelbarrows, hand tools, work gloves and aprons, more than 250 adults trekked across the Church Street Elementary School grounds on Thursday. And it was all for the sake of improving the playground.

About 150 volunteers, many of which were parents, were gathered by school officials to build the playground, a gift of equipment donated by Home Depot and the city of Riverdale. Remaining volunteers consisted of employees from Home Depot, Riverdale Mayor Phaedra Graham and Billy Hayes, the city’s fire chief. A five-member team from KaBOOM!, a non-profit organization that works with community groups to build playgrounds, sports fields and ice rinks, coordinated the build. Volunteers spent nearly seven hours installing the new equipment.

To learn how you can support play in your community click here.

By Julie Deardorff
Knight Ridder Newspapers

If you've been wondering whether your children are suffering from nature-deficit disorder, Richard Louv suggests examining their current relationship with the great outdoors.

Has your son ever said, "I like to play indoors because that's where all the electrical outlets are"?

Is your daughter more familiar with Pikachu, Metapod and Wigglytuff than a squirrel, beetle and elm tree?

 

Experts agree that there is an epidemic of overweight and obesity among American children. Since 1980 the percentage of children who are overweight has more than doubled, and among adolescents the rate has more than tripled. Overweight is a risk factor for health conditions such as diabetes and is associated with problems such as poor self-esteem. While the obesity epidemic is being felt in all communities, prevalence of obesity among school-aged children is just as high in some low-income communities and has more profound negative impacts because of inadequate or unavailable health care and lack of resources for improved nutrition.

 

 To learn how you can support play in your community click here.

Community Projects: Michigan Skatepark Makes an Impact After downtown merchants lodged complaints about skateboarders, Manistee Chief of Police David Bachman knew that a skatepark would be the ideal solution. Bachman also knew that one has to believe in the project to be able to sell it -- and believe in it he did. Find out how the chief, the kids and city council all worked together to get the job done.

To learn how you can support play in your community, click here.

 

In this week's blog entry, Dennis fills us in on what everybody's been looking at on the new portal. Plus, find out who won the KaBOOM! Toolkit and take a timely survey on playgrounds in your area. Get the details...

 

Don't forget to log in to leave a comment!

 

The National Association of State Boards of Education and many state and local policymakers nationwide are convinced that good school health programs play a crucial supporting role to excellence in education. School health programs can help ensure that students are fit, healthy, and ready to learn every day.

The Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asked NASBE to help states, districts, and schools develop policies that would help prevent long-term chronic diseases. The resulting policy guide complements CDC's school health guidelines, which provide state-of-the-art, scientifically reliable information on what constitutes effective school health programs.