If you had told Ina Parker-Hicks two years ago that she would be building a playground at a Long Beach elementary school, she would have thought you were crazy. But a year after receiving a small grant from the City to build planter boxes at Edison’s Child Development Center and less than eight weeks after launching into a funding partnership with Zynga.org through Kaboom!, she is looking forward to this Saturday when more than 200 volunteers will construct a community-designed playground for the neighborhood’s two-to-five year-olds in a space that is currently devoid of such things.
“It’s pretty sad what’s there right now,” says Parker-Hicks of the Long Beach Unified School District’s Child Development Center (CDC), which is housed on the campus of Edison Elementary School off 7th St. and Daisy. “There’s a painted track and they can ride around it on tricycles. There are also a few plastic backyard playthings, but that’s it.”
The Long Beach mother of two (who has a knack for community organizing) was first inspired to spruce up the small fenced-off blacktop area when she noticed there was no greenery at Edison Elementary School’s CDC, a District-operated facility that serves preschoolers and school age elementary children near her home.
Under a group she works for called Green Long Beach!, she applied for and received a $750 grant through the City’s Neighborhood Partners Program to install planter boxes at the site, but the money only needed to go towards purchasing the wood. That’s because Parker-Hicks convinced a local nursery to donate the plants and soil, and she reached out to the Carpentry program at Long Beach City College, which agreed to have the students assist in the planters’ construction.
Current photo of the Edison CDC site, where the new playground will be constructed. Photo by Ina Parker-Hicks.
It’s this kind of tenacity that eventually brought in two more $5000 grants as well as the playspace-building nonprofit Kaboom!, turning what began as a simple idea for a garden into a playground project that at every level engaged the very community that it will soon serve.
“In November 2012, we were awarded $10,000 for equipment to donate to LBUSD,” Parker-Hicks says. “I thought I was going to pick something out of a catalog and have the maintainence team install it. But then Kaboom! found us a donor.”
Working as a laison between community groups seeking to install or fix playgrounds and corporate sponsors willing to front the funds, Kaboom! is an organization dedicated to saving what it sees as a “play deficit” in America. Through its work, Kaboom! says it has served more than six million kids that have little access to play equipment through the construction or rennovation of more than 15,000 playgrounds.
Earlier this year, Green Long Beach! received news from Kaboom! that Zynga.org, a gaming website, had agreed to sponsor the Edison CDC playground and garden project, launching Parker-Hicks into a whirlwind design process that included weekly conference calls, daily emails and a community design workshop where the childen were asked to envision their dream playground. Parents worked off of the local kids’ ideas gathered at this workshop and, from a catalog of colorful modular equipment, came up with the custom play area’s final design.
And in about four hours on Saturday, the entire project will come to fruition at a build day that will include raffles, entertainment, food and children’s activities. Beginning at 9AM, volunteers will lay down the LBUSD-donated rubber matting on the currently empty 2500 square-foot space and by 3PM, a ribbon-cutting will be conducted for the newly installed playground.
Parker-Hicks says she also wants to replace the fencing surrounding the play area and has plans to construct an outdoor classroom for the young CDC students.
“They need it. It’s a barren space right now, right next to the freeway onramp,” she says. “These kids deserve better.”
Volunteers are still needed for the build day, which will run from 8AM to 4PM. Food will be provided. Email [email protected] for more information. Edison Children’s Development Center is located at 640 W. 7th St.
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