Playmaker of the Month: Mara Kaplan

Promoting Play for Kids of All Abilities

With the birth of Mara Kaplan’s son fifteen years ago, she came to the realization that there were no open spaces to play for children with disabilities. More importantly, there were no places that he could meet and mingle with other children in an unstructured way – let alone in a setting that also provided her with a chance to meet and share experiences with other mothers.

Because it didn’t exist, Mara made the decision to create it herself. With the help of four other mothers, the Center for Creative Play, an indoor space for unstructured play, was founded in 1995. The Center started with nothing except support from some non-profit organizations, but was eventually able to obtain grants to support further growth. Slight interest led to over 1,000 visitors by the first year, which rose to to 45,000 per year within 5 years. Soon the team was helping to create other sites for play, improving children’s spaces in other communities around the country. The team also worked hard with KaBOOM! as its partner to show people how to make their playgrounds more accessible.

Sadly, with the onset of the recent economic downturn, the Center for Creative Play had to close its doors in 2007. This could have ended Mara's relationship with play, but instead, she looked around realized the task of bringing play to children wasn’t complete. There were still children without places to play.

This led Mara to create Let Kids Play, a consulting agency dedicated to creating and improving play spaces for children of all abilities. She led a KaBOOM! community build for a new playground at her daughter's school and helped write a CEU program on accessible playgrounds for a major playground manufacturer.

Mara is not done. She is now working on creating the first natural playground in the Pittsburgh area. Mara is thrilled that the importance of play that she has been promoting for the last 15 years is now coming into the forefront of policy discussion. She looks forward to continuing to be part of the play movement.

If you would like more information, visit www.letkidsplay.com to read more about accessibility, universal design and see examples of communities who have built accessible playgrounds. You can become a fan of Mara on connect.kaboom.org as well!

Thank you, Mara, for all your fantastic work as a Playmaker!