“On Wednesday more than 500 volunteers will gather at the Imagine Southeast Public Charter School, in Congress Heights, one of Washington’s poorest neighborhoods, to help construct the 2,000th playground led by KaBOOM!, an organization that has turned community playground building into the modern-day equivalent of barn raising. Among those assembling slides and swing sets alongside residents and Americorps volunteers will be Michelle Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who will be highlighting the importance of play and the administration’s Let’s Move initiative, which aims to attack the problem of childhood obesity.
For 15 years, KaBOOM! has been leading playground construction around the country, mostly in neighborhoods where at least 70 percent of children qualify for the federal government’s free and reduced-cost lunch program. Earlier this month, it completed its 150th playground on the Gulf Coast — in New Orleans’ Palmer Park.
In Fixes, we often focus on basic problems that are overlooked. Despite overwhelming evidence that play is vital for children’s physical, emotional and cognitive development, in recent decades, due to many factors, children’s outdoor play opportunities have declined markedly. As I reported in a past column, many schools have scaled back recess because of disciplinary problems and pressures to improve students’ academic performance.
KaBOOM! is attacking another dimension of this problem: the shortage of safe, developmentally appropriate and attractive play spaces available to many American children. KaBOOM! has assumed a leading role defining, highlighting and, now, mapping, the country’s “play deserts” — communities lacking such spaces. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half the children in the country live in a neighborhood without a park or community center. . .”
Check out the full New York Times blog post by David Bornstein, June 14, 2011.