2005 Challenge Grantee - City of Warner Robins

The City of Warner Robins is proud to host the military families living at the Robins Air Force base. When Captain Lisa Angell of the Warner Robins police department realized that the playground at Memorial Park, a city park near the base housing, was outdated and unsafe, she decided to approach the mayor and police chief about the possibility of renovating the playspace. As a city park, not only would the military base families benefit, but so would the children living in the adjacent low-income housing project. As soon as she received approval from the mayor and police chief, Lisa set off for the KaBOOM! University of Play (U Play!) held in Atlanta in March 2005, and returned to Warner Robins with a new and exciting vision for Memorial Park.

With an estimated total budget of $53,000, Lisa knew that there was a great deal of work to do and only a matter of months in which to do it. The Warner Robins Playground Project applied for and was awarded a KaBOOM!-The Home Depot 2005 Challenge Grant in the amount of $5,000. The announcement of this grant award provided a lot of media attention for the project, and Lisa was able to leverage the grant from KaBOOM! and The Home Depot to secure additional funding in her community. For example, the project was able to tap into a $25,000 donation that had been provided to the city for beautification projects. In addition, a local politician made a generous donation of $5,000.

Special event fundraising activities ran the gamut. There was a sponsorship program where donations of certain amounts would earn the donor recognition on a plaque at the playground ($5,000) or on the promotional Build Day volunteer t-shirts ($1,000). This program was quite successful, yielding a large donation from the local electric company of $5,000 and several $1,000 sponsorships from a number of local businesses. To solicit individual donations, there were numerous organized fundraisers. These included a bike-a-thon, a 5K and fun run, a children's olympics, a large community yard sale, and a dunking booth at the city's Fourth of July celebration. The city also held a competition to design the front of the volunteer Build Day t-shirt at the cost of $1 per entry.

In-kind donations were also a critical piece of the fundraising effort. The city's Public Works department donated all of the site preparation work, which included the removal of the old playground equipment. Food was donated by local restaurants for some of the fundraising events. As for Build Day food, Outback Steakhouse got in touch with Lisa and asked if they could provide lunch to all the volunteers. Lisa said, "We were expecting hamburgers, but then they showed up and started grilling steaks!"

The Warner Robins Playground Project utilized the community-build model, involving the community in all aspects of the project. First and foremost, there was a planning committee that was comprised of several team leaders. The group hosted a design day at a local church across the street from the build site and 15 children came out to help design their dream playground. While the public works department did most of the heavy lifting in order to prep the site, Lisa reported that about 15 people showed up to help when all the new playground equipment was delivered. They were able to organize the equipment (including the hundreds of bolts, screws and nuts that accompanied it) so that it would be ready for Build Day.

One hundred and ten volunteers came out to the playground Build Day at Memorial Park. These volunteers came from local churches, the military base, the city (including police officers) as well as a number of other parents and community members that had seen ads in the paper recruiting volunteers. Lisa and the rest of the planning committee were thrilled that the number of volunteers had exceeded their expectations!

In addition to challenge grant fundraising, Lisa took advantage of the wide range of KaBOOM! resources available. The support offered was wonderful. Lisa had never been involved in a project like this, so the resources provided by KaBOOM! were a huge help. When asked if she utilized the Toolkit, Lisa replied "Oh yes! I went through that Toolkit!" Lisa was able to use the Toolkit to help keep track of what needed to be done and to make sure she and all the planning team leaders were on the same page. Lisa logged her project into the Online Planner Tool (the predecessor to the new Online Portal) and appreciated the organizational features available to her online. In addition, Lisa said that her Playworld Systems representative from Southern Playgrounds was great and often made himself available to her along the way as she had questions about the equipment and installation process.

Lisa felt that this community-built playground project had a significant impact on her community by helping to nuture a positive experience between the police department and the community. The police officers were able to give back to the community, with many of them coming out for the Build Day. Also, this project has given new life to a park that was once suffering from lack of use. Even with the ball fields that already existed at the park, no one was using the old playground, and families were avoiding the space. Now it is a place where the community can gather.

Lisa did have some advice for future playspace builders. She, like KaBOOM!, encourages having at least two planning committee chairpersons because keeping team leaders motivated is a huge task and requires proper attention. Lisa also mentioned that while participating in the grantee conference calls was great, the best part was being able to get input and feedback from other project leaders. She recommend that KaBOOM! add a feature to its website to allow project leaders to chat with each other and post messages to share their experiences. Needless to say she was thrilled to hear that this feature now exists on the new KaBOOM! Online Portal!

Long-range plans for Memorial Park include the construction of a skate park for teenagers and a track for walkers and joggers. With the success of the playground under its belt, there is no reason that the city should not be able to manage this new challenge!

Grantee Success Stories
Crescent Real Estate Companies & Versia Williams Elementary
City of Warner Robbins


Organization:  Crescent Real Estate Companies & Versia Williams Elementary
Location:  Fort Worth, Texas
Primary Project Managers:  Nicole Capage and Cliff Mayer
Build Date:  10/14/2006

On Oct. 14, 2006, nearly 300 volunteers came together in Fort Worth, Texas to build a brand new place to play for the 525 students of Versia Williams Elementary.  For Principal Cliff Mayer, this day was the culmination of a one-year commitment of parents and volunteers. The playground planning process for Versia Williams started in 2005, when Crescent Real Estate Companies chose to partner with the elementary school.

Crescent Real Estate Companies, a real estate investment trust, manages 73 office buildings across the nation. For many years, Crescent Real Estate has proven their commitment to the community by providing support to organizations that focus on children and education. In 1997, they began a unique initiative called FACES of Change, in which a Crescent property adopts a local school and forms a three-year partnership. At the beginning of the partnership, the school composes a “wish list” of needs that the school would like to be addressed. Over the next three years, the school and FACES of Change worked to develop programs to address these needs.

In 2005, FACES of Change decided to adopt a school in Fort Worth where the corporate headquarters are located. Versia Williams Elementary was chosen for the quality of leadership of the school’s administration, needs of the students and location. Nicole Capage, Community Relations Manager for Crescent Real Estate, worked closely with Principal Mayer to develop Versia’s wish list. A priority on that list was a new playground. However, both parties were unsure of where to begin such a large project.

Nicole, who was familiar with KaBOOM!, received information about KaBOOM!’s national training, the University of Play (U Play!). Both Nicole and Cliff decided to attend. As they saw the toolkit come to life, they walked away with the wealth of knowledge and inspiration necessary to ensure they could build a new great place to play for the students of Versia Williams Elementary. They also learned about the The Home Depot – KaBOOM! Community-Built Playspace Challenge Grant program.  

They started with setting a Build Day and forming a planning committee, comprised of teachers, parents, and Crescent Real Estate employees. After holding a Design Day, in which each classroom sent two student representatives to present their dream playground, the committee set a budget of $50,450. Over the next nine months, they raised nearly $60,000 through a combination of grants, corporate sponsorships, special events, individual contributions, and in-kind donations. Early in their planning process, they received a The Home Depot – KaBOOM! Challenge Grant and received both financial assistance and guidance throughout their planning process.

Additionally, both the school and Crescent Real Estate designed innovative ideas to raise these funds. Principal Mayer challenged his teachers to raise as much money as possible over the course of a week, simply by asking all their contacts to support the project. In one short week, the teachers raised $4,000 and raised awareness about their project.

Crescent Real Estate started a “Play-Dough Campaign.” Each employee was given a Play-Dough can with new labels that read “Raising Play-Dough.” They were then divided into teams that each adopted a piece of playground equipment. Each team was required to raise a certain amount of money to buy that piece of equipment and had to develop fundraisers as a team. Some teams raised money holding movie hours during the business day, selling popcorn, and holding bake sales. This was a great way to not only raise money, but to get Crescent staff excited about the project.  

After all the diligent planning and fundraising, nearly 300 community members gathered on Oct. 14th, 2006 to build the playground. For volunteers, the day started at 8 a.m. with an energetic kickoff that introduced the build team captains. At around 10 a.m. it started raining, but with most of the equipment already assembled, spirits were not dampened. By 2:30 p.m., the playground was complete. The district’s superintendent joined the celebration for a 3 p.m. board-cutting. Principal Mayer and Crescent CEO John Goff each received the pleasure of keeping one half of a red oak board that was signed by all volunteers as they arrived on site. Crescent employees were proud and inspired to see their own CEO on site in the wee hours of the morning and finishing the day covered in mud. As the kids came out at the end of the day, they looked up at their new playground in awe. Principal Mayer overheard one wide-eyed girl gasp and say “Look at my new playground!” 

In just one year, Versia Williams and Crescent Real Estate Companies raised almost $60,000, built a new playground, and created a strong partnership. Currently, they are working together with a landscape architect to improve the landscaping of the school and to build an outdoor pavilion and classroom. Crescent Real Estate employees have demonstrated their investment in the school by taking part in other activities such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, teaching Junior Achievement, adopting families during the holidays, and tutoring for state assessment tests. They are on their way to addressing every item of Versia Williams’ wish list!

The Home Depot and KaBOOM! are proud to have supported the Versia Williams Elementary School project through the Community-Built Playspace Challenge Grant Program. To learn how you can earn $5,000 for your playspace or field refurbishment project, please visit the Challenge Grant section.