Alumni Network

What is the Alumni Network?

KaBOOM! alumni are individuals and organizations who have completed playspace builds in their communities. KaBOOM! alumni can share their stories and ideas with each other, be eligible for exclusive incentives and grants, and receive helpful information to keep the momentum going after Build Day! If you've built a playspace, join the KaBOOM! Alumni Facebook group today!

Grants -- Only for Alumni

Let's Play Maintenance Grants

Apply today to receive $750 gift card to help you with future maintenance of your playground.

Thanks to generous support from Dr Pepper Snapple Group, KaBOOM! will be awarding grants of $750 each to communities this year who wish to make their playgrounds cleaner, safer and more inviting. The Let’s Play Maintenance grants are designed to reward communities that have maintained and spruced their playspaces since their playground build. If you’ve done a “spruce up” project at your playground that involved volunteers in the last 6 months, you are eligible to apply. Alternatively, if you are a community that needs to refill the wood fiber playground surfacing at the playground, you can apply for $750 to be used towards the purchase of the surfacing. Learn more and apply today!

Let's Play Alumni Improvement Grants: Imagination Playground in a Box

A National Partner of KaBOOM!, Dr Pepper Snapple Group has made a $15 million, three-year commitment to the organization as part of the company’s Let’s Play initiative. Let’s Play is a community partnership led by Dr Pepper Snapple Group designed to get kids active nationwide. Through Let's Play, KaBOOM! and Dr Pepper Snapple Group will provide the tools, places and inspiration to help communities increase physical activity. As an active KaBOOM! alumni, you are eligible to apply for an Imagination Playground in a Box grant.

Imagination Playground in a Box

Imagination Playground is designed to prompt creativity and sensory exploration with a manipulable environment and “loose parts,” a changing array of elements that allow children to turn their playground into a space constantly built and re-built by their imagination. Free play enhances creative, open-ended interaction for a child’s cognitive, social, physical and emotional development.

Need help? Contact Joy Yoo.

Continue to keep your community engaged!

Even if you feel like you've tapped your resources dry to pull together your build, right now is the best time to start rallying your community for 'what's next'! Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Perform a community assessment
• Continue to enhance your playspace
• Organize a playspace cleanup
• Engage your community to become a Playful City
• Organize a playground watch
• Hold calendar events on a monthly basis
• Create a Playspace Care Committee
• Hold 'Reading Days' at your playspace
• Make your playspace available for special events
• Fundraise for playspace maintenance
• Hold a 'Play Day'

We will continue to add to this list of ideas, but if you have one of your own, let us know!

West Hancock Elementary keeps the build day excitement going!

James Morgan, vice principal at West Hancock Elementary School of Picayune, Miss., helped to bring his community together to build a playground in November of 2008. Soon after, he secured an outdoor workout center for the students to use during PE class.

Determined to get adults moving and exercising, too, James then used his "solicitation skills" he honed during the playground project to start emailing and calling to get adult workout equipment donated to the school. Now the West Hancock staff has a full workout room filled with modern weight and cardio equipment! Teachers are using the equipment regularly and have created their own version of the "Bigger Loser" as a healthy competition. This movement is also getting everyone to eat healthier. The school has recently applied for a grant to get water and fruit for the students to eat throughout the day as healthy snacks.

James noticed another need for his school beyond the playground, and has started a healthy living movement! You can do the same in your community by using all the skills and resources you gained from your playspace project.