Building Playgrounds, Engaging Communities: Creating Safe and Happy Places for Children

Epilogue

154 Epilogue The LSU Community Playground Project is still making forward progress on our quest to provide children with safe, fun, accessible playgrounds. On our seventh try for funding, we received a $10,000 grant for the White Hills Elementary playground from the Cogburn Family Foundation, and we recently found out that Cogburn has decided to grant White Hills another $10,000 to supplement the swings we purchased with their initial grant. I am not sure who is more excited, me or White Hills principal Cheryl Lewis, who has also secured approximately $2,250 in donations for the new playground. In conjunction with the leadership provided by Principal Patrice Hudson , the Buchanan Elementary School Parent Teacher Association and their community partner, the First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge, put together more than $26,000 and recently completed a new school playground. We are actively working with approximately ten schools and organizations on designs, bid specifications, and/or funding for community playgrounds. Fireplug Cindy Murphy has been successful in securing several small grants for the Wildwood Elementary playground, but she is still searching for a large grant to complete the dream playground created by the children at Wildwood. Parkview Elementary fifth-graders are still playing in full view of a cemetery. Pre-kindergartners are still playing on three tree stumps. Westminster Elementary School contacted me a month ago; although they remain excited about the school-age playground we completed together in 2004, the pre-kindergarten students have precious lit- Epilogue / 155 tle equipment to use, so we’ll be collaborating again to transform the prekindergarteners ’ play space (which will not include a fire pole). We will never get past a phase I playground design at Brookstown Elementary because the school was recently closed. I’ve had students enter my classroom who were touched by the playground project before reaching LSU. As a junior in high school, Josh Reaves built a playhouse at the McMains Children’s Developmental Center for his Eagle Scout project. It was his initial spark that led to executive director Janet Ketcham launching a full-blown effort to upgrade the entire McMains playground. Josh and his team worked side by side with the LSU Community Playground Project to complete our respective parts of the playground. Two years later, Josh showed up in my playground design class; he went on to graduate with a degree in biological engineering and is now a successful practicing engineer. Elizabeth Kissner, a student enrolled in my 2011 playground design class, told me that she grew up playing on the Villa del Rey playground, the one that Jeff and my high-achieving students toiled on in 2001. She remembers being a very excited nine-year-old on the day that the playground was completed. Deborah Gabriel, a veteran counselor at Villa del Rey, is also the mother of Mark Gabriel, a biological engineering graduate who did well in my class, volunteered on several playground builds during his undergraduate career, and is now a successful entrepreneur. Villa del Rey has become my first “three-peat” partnership. The LSU Community Playground Project is collaborating once again with the school, this time on their pre-kindergarten playground, from which all equipment was recently declared off-limits due to safety issues. I still get to see Joe Howell through an annual LSU–Aramark–public school system partnership called Community Bound, in which incoming LSU freshmen work with LSU students, staff, and faculty to provide schoolyard clean up and beautification at numerous area public schools in a day of service facilitated by Aramark employees. Other than a broken foot sustained 156 / Building Playgrounds, Engaging Communities when the dunk tank chair he was sitting on collapsed unexpectedly, Joe is doing wonderfully. He is quick to say that he raised $500 for public schools during his stint in the dunk tank, which enabled employees of Aramark to take a crack at Joe for a nominal fee. As for me, I can still carry an eightypound bag of concrete when I have to, but it’s harder to do at age forty-six than it was at age thirty-four. Civic engagement is like an ocean that churns with challenge and success . I have body surfed these waves for more than a decade, and they still leave me enthused and nimble. I can’t wait to learn and do more, and to revel in the souls of communities I have...