Two weeks ago, I traveled to be part of a KaBOOM! WE Play! training in Nashua, New Hampshire.  I decided to take advantage of being there and scheduled visits before and after WE Play! to several playgrounds in New Hampshire and Massachusetts that had been recipients of $5,000 KaBOOM!/The Home Depot challenge grants.  The Home Depot challenge grant program that KaBOOM! has administered since 2005 will have helped fund more than 175 playground builds and field refurbishments by the end of this year in addition to more than 300 community park/playspace improvement projects, and I had the opportunity to visit five of the challenge grant playgrounds during the week I was in New Hampshire – including four that had been built during the past two years, and one on Saturday, August 18, as it was being built.  The Home Depot of course has also been the full sponsor of hundreds of KaBOOM!-led playground builds over the years, but I was particularly interested in seeing some results from some of these auxiliary challenge grant awards designed to help additional communities. 

I found five marvelous playgrounds (check out a photo gallery here).  I visited one in the town of Bedford, NH, and four in communities in Massachusetts – Worcester, Dorchester, Hanson, and Peabody.  As different as their circumstances were, these playgrounds had several things in common.  They were built with funds from a variety of sources, raised by the citizen playground committees that came together dedicated to seeing a new place to play.  They employed the community build model, meaning that volunteers were a key part of the entire planning process; that they also involved kids in their planning; and that they were built – actually constructed – largely by volunteers from the community.  Each project had one – sometimes two – leader or co-leaders who were absolutely pivotal in getting the project going and keeping it going.  Each project was gracious in recognizing its supporters and sponsors, including The Home Depot and KaBOOM!  And each process was a success – a testament to the community build model, to the notion that communities can come together and plan, finance, and build a playground. 

I want to give a special thanks to all those who hosted me, showed me around, and related their story of challenges, rewards, obstacles, and ultimate triumph.  Thanks to John Gardiner and Carrie Moore in Worcester for the hospitality at the Comprehensive Child Care Center South Main Center, to Jacqueline Goggin at the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester, to Erin Fox in Hanson, to Michelle Casale who came and talked to our WE Play! attendees about her build in Bedford, and to Wendy Minton in Peabody (pictured above), who not only showed me around, but did so on her build day!

These five projects are a wonderful illustration of what can happen when a person gets inspired, when a community gets involved, and when a partner like The Home Depot helps.