Prospectus 2007 - Solano Playlot

Solano Playlot: A New Model Re-thinking Urban Playgrounds for Children Age 0-5

Prospectus May 2007

Prepared by: Toody Maher 2604 Roosevelt Avenue Richmond, CA 94804-1623 (510) 215-5500 V (510) 590-1716 C toodym@pacbell.net

A QUICK SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS IN THIS DOCUMENT

Rapid brain development in infants

The critical role of play in brain development

Where do the children play?

In the 1990’s, technological advances in brain imagery techniques allowed neuroscientists to see -- for the first time, and in exquisite detail -- exactly how the brain develops. What they found, startled and suprised them. They found that the brain of a baby develops faster than anyone thought or imagined possible. All the wiring that creates the neural pathways that govern a child’s entire cognitive, linguistic, social, and physical development is formed between the ages of 0-5. But here’s the critical point: the best possible way to wire the brain for healthy development, the very wiring that will enable a child to reach his fullest potential, is through play.

Oftentimes, when people think of “play,” they mistakenly think only of physical play: running, swinging, jumping. Playgrounds all over this country have been designed to foster “physical” play. In fact, there are other types of play: collaborative play (when kids play with others), creative play (when kids create or transform something), fantasy play (when kids play make-believe). Recently, experts in education and child development say that children must engage in varied play during the critical 0-5 years in order to develop to their potential.

Middle class families, anxious to provide the type of rich and varied play opportunities experts say their kids need, have swarmed to “pay-for-play” options such as zoos, amusement parks, discovery museums, summer camps, art and music classes. However, for low-income families, oftentimes the only play option is the playground in their church, school, or public park. And the playground they will find there will not provide the type of “meaningful” (i.e. rich and varied) play experts say that their children need. So their children are at a disadvantage early on.

In fact, the playgrounds they will find in America today will, most likely, lack those essential elements children need to develop, grow, and thrive. This is certainly true of the majority of the eight public “playlots” in Richmond. The majority of Richmond’s playlots are seldom used, littered with debris, and tagged with graffiti. Their energy is moribund and static. In Richmond, a struggling city grappling with big problems such as violent crime, erosion of its manufacturing base, lack of jobs, pollution, and an infrastructure and public morale decimated by (but recovering from) a period of financial duress, there is debate about what to do first, where to put the city’s resources.

Revitalize parks, revitalize communities

Meanwhile, there is a growing body of research that suggests that an effective way to revitalize a community is to revitalize their parks. There are so many societal benefits to great parks: they improve property values, attract and retain businesses and residents, provide environmental benefits, allow neighbors to experience a sense of community, and reduce crime.

The situation we face here in Richmond is similar to the predicament cities face all over the country: namely, that playgrounds, especially in inner-city neighborhoods, do not provide meaningful play opportunities for its youngest children.

I would like to do something about this.

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MY PROPOSAL My goal is to start a nonprofit that would assume the operational responsibilities and stewardship of the Solano playlot in Richmond. By this, I mean: our nonprofit would oversee the park, staff it, and take care of it with heart and soul. With community input at every step, I would re-think, re-design, and build a new playground that reflects and applies the latest and best thinking from experts in child development, education, environmental and playground design. My goal is to create a new park designed specifically for infants and toddlers age 0-5, run it, tinker with what works and doesn’t work, and create a model. This model could then be replicated in other playlots in Richmond and in other urban neighborhoods around the country.

THE DESIGN VISION OF THE SOLANO PLAYLOT First, I would design the park with fixed and varied elements. By fixed, I envision the playlot would include basic equipment such as slides, swings, sandbox, trike path, and something to climb. Additionally, I would like to create something whimsical, such as a child-scale, “global village” made up of sample houses from around the world: a tee pee, yurt, log cabin, mud hut, or igloo.

By varied, I envision organizing activities that come and go, with the season, weather, or mood. For example, I’ve found that kids love it when I take them to my friend, Peter Rudy the arborist’s work yard. There, they can play, for hours, in one gigantic hill of mulch (cut up shards of pine, walnut, eucalyptus and maple trees). They climb up the hill, roll down it. They take shovels and dig in it. They put mulch in buckets and pour it into another pile. The list is endless. But this, along with things like costumes, art supplies, storytime, and malleable materials, give a sense of the kind of “varied” element that would be featured in the playlot from time to time.

Second, the park would have a paid, full-time “Park Host:” someone who is always there. The park host has two roles. First, to watch over the park, like a parent watches over a child. He or she ensures that the bathroom is always clean, the trashcans are emptied, and the grounds are kept up. Second, to function as a “Play Leader” (very popular in over 1,000 parks in Europe where it is a full-time profession!). The play leader’s role is to create opportunities for children to engage in varied play. This might mean scheduling a storytime, arranging for a delivery of a pile of mulch or, if it was hot, turning on the drip faucet.

Third, the park could be a place to link the community to other city services and programs. For instance, a librarian from the Richmond library could be scheduled on pre-arranged days to sit in the special storyteller chair and read a book.

Or the library’s bookmobile could come to the park each Friday from 2-6 pm.

Or we could partner with Kaiser and have a doctor or nurse practioner come to the park on certain days to provide basic medical services like vaccinations. We could work with the city’s paratransit services to shuttle senior citizens to and from the park, where they could volunteer to read or draw with the children, or just be there and pass the day amongst the delightful sounds of children playing.

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Fourth, I would erect a tall and beautiful fence around the park with a single entrance/exit gate that the park host opens in the morning and locks at night. All loose materials could be stored in a locked shed.

Fifth, I would provide basic amenities for adults: comfortable seating with shade, benches, running water, healthy snacks and a clean bathroom.

COST OF THE PROJECT We will need a $150,000 seed grant to start the nonprofit, conduct a survey of city residents, begin preliminary design and planning work and cover basic operational costs. Once the plans are set, we estimate that it will cost around $200,000-$300,000 annually to run the nonprofit and an additional $100,000-$150,000 to build each new park.

BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE My name is Toody Maher. I live in Richmond and I am a designer, inventor, and entrepreneur. I graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1983 and, along with my brother, secured the distribution rights to Swatch Watch in the 11 Western States. In 1983, I helped to pioneer the product launch of Swatch, set up the regional office. In three years, sales went from $0 in 1993 to $30 million in my region. Afterward, I started another company, Fun Products, that created the world’s first clear telephone with lights which was named Fortune Magazine’s “Product of the Year” in 1990. I was also named Inc. Magazine’s 1990 “Entrepreneur of the Year.”

After Fun Products, I became a director at a San Francisco nonprofit called Juma Ventures, where I created a series of “social enterprise” businesses including Ben & Jerry’s ice cream stores and a Ben & Jerry’s/Tully’s coffee concession at Candlestick and PacBell Park. The businesses provided jobs and job training for 200 “at-risk” youth ages 14-21, primarily from San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunter’s Point and Mission districts.

For the past five years, I have invented, developed, and patented different products and either sold or licensed them to other companies. I also worked as a consultant on a very interesting project for a research institute at UCLA, helping them translate their scientific finding into formats that people could actually use. It was during this tenure, when I was working on how to increase overall health and well-being in communities, that I realized how invaluable parks could be to children, families and their communities if only the parks were designed correctly.

My specialty is to take an idea and manifest it. I’ve had 25 years experience in building and growing a business. I’m excellent at systems: designing and creating an infrastructure to ensure that all part work together. I’m a good communicator; I can talk across disciplines--legal, graphic design, accounting, operations, human resources.

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I have built a network of incredible, talented, able, knowledgeable people in virtually every realm: engineers, graphic designers, architects, artists, writers, photographers, poets, lawyers, accountants, illustrators, industrial designers, public relations specialists, insurance agents, web designers, researchers, journalists, film and television producers, directors, private investigators, doctors, teachers, electricians, plumbers, painters, architects, jewelry designers, cartoonists, draftsmen, general contractors. Whenever I need an answer, I know where to go. I’m an excellent project manager: I have an ability to see how pieces fit into the whole, and then how to motivate people to help get things done.

More than anything, this project has absolutely captivated me. It could allow me to use my skills to benefit the community in which I live, and could prove to be the most creative, challenging and fulfilling project of my life.

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BACKGROUND

Neuroscientists called the 1990’s the “Decade of the Brain” because technological advances in brain imagery techniques (MRI, PET-scan, CAT-scan etc.) allowed scientists to see––for the first time, and in exquisite detail––exactly how the brain develops. What they found, startled and surprised them: FIRST, scientists found that babies are born with some neurons already hard-wired into the brain circuits that regulate breathing, control the heart-beat, maintain body temperature, or produce reflexes.

But the majority of the trillions upon trillions of neurons in babies’ brains at birth are pure potentiality: in other words, they are not yet connected or programmed to do anything and are waiting to be “woven into the tapestry of the mind.”1

MRI image

SECOND, scientists found – to their surprise – that neurons are “woven” or hard-wired into the brain by two things: use and experience. It is a child’s own experience interacting with the world, not his genetic make-up (as previously thought), that causes neurons to connect and neural pathways to be formed. The entire organization of the brain is based on experience. And the type and quality of experiences form the neural pathways that organize and govern the four foundational pillars of brain development: cognitive, linguistic, physical and social.

“It is the early experiences of childhood, determining which neurons are used, that wire the circuits of the brain as surely as a programmer with a keyboard reconfigures the circuits in a computer.

Which keys are typed, which experiences a child has, determines whether the child grows up to be intelligent or dull, fearful or selfassured, articulate or tongue-tied.” 2

Use and experience spur neurons to connect and form sysnapses

THIRD, scientists discovered that the brain of an infant developed faster than they’d ever thought, or imagined, possible. “Normal early development is so rapid that the PET scan of a one-year-old more closely resembles an adult’s brain than a newborn’s. By age two the number of synapses reaches adult levels.” 3 CAT-scan of a brain

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FOURTH, scientists found that brain development is a “use it or lose it” process. “Billions of other neurons are ready to be connected to other neurons, but they must be used in order for connections to be made and circuitry to be formed. Unused, neurons do not survive, the potential trillions of synapses or connections are not formed, and the child never reaches his potential.” 4 The pathways that are repeatedly activated or used are hard-wired into the brain and retained into adulthood. Furthermore, the window of opportunity to hard-wire the neural pathways of the brain is open widest during age 0-2, but narrows with each passing year and appears to close between ages 8 and 10. 5

Synapses join together to form the neural pathways that establish the basis for all cognitive, linguistic, social and physical development

BEST WAY TO WIRE THE BRAIN: PLAY And what does any of this have to do with playlots in Richmond?

By unearthing the findings about brain development outlined above, educators and child development experts discovered that the best way to hard-wire the brain for healthy development is through play.

Children, like all healthy, young mammals play.6 Play is how they learn.

Playing provides perhaps the premiere venue for children to practice, over and over, the full range of skills they will need to survive. Through play, when children share or resolve disputes, they are, in fact, building their social development. When they swing, slide or jump, they are, in fact, building their physical development. When they play hide-andseek, they are, in fact, building their cognitive development, and so forth. No other activity provides children with the kind of rich, meaningful, super-charged opportunity to practice those very skills that form the basis of their entire development that, in turn, will chart their course for life.

All healthy mammals play in order to learn

The casual observer might not grasp the profound relationships between achievement and the endless games that the very young play–– patty-cake, peek-a-boo, and sing-song rhythms are in reality storehouses or machines for programming the brain for language, art, music, math, science, kinesthetic, and interpersonal abilities and intelligence.7 Experts in child development and education stress that play is perhaps the best vehicle to build the foundational pillars of a child’s cognitive, linguistic, social and physical development. As such, educators today stress the need to provide children with “meaningful” play opportunities: meaning that children must engage in a variety of types of play (as opposed to “physical” play alone) in order to grow and develop to their potential.

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Simple games like peek-a-boo help a baby’s brain get wired to acquire music, math and social skills

These different types of play include: PHYSICAL PLAY: engaging in active movement such as swinging, sliding, running, hanging, spinning or climbing IMAGINATIVE PLAY: pretending, fantasizing, making-believe, and acting out things that are not real COLLABORATIVE PLAY: joining with others to play, such as ball games, see-saw, dolls, house, or hide-and-seek CREATIVE PLAY: making, assembling, manipulating, building and creating things QUIET PLAY: listening to a story, stringing beads, solving puzzles, coloring Storytelling is a good example of quiet play

WHERE DO THE CHILDREN PLAY? Pay-for-Play The need for meaningful play spaces has spawned a myriad of “payfor-play” options across the country that include children’s discovery museums, water parks, zoos, private lessons, summer camps, organized sports, amusement parks, music, dance and art classes. These private venues are magnets for middle class families, who willingly pay whatever entrance fee is necessary in order to provide their children with the tools for creativity, exploration, discovery, and intrigue they need to practice over and over in order to develop and grow.

However, for low-income families, who cannot afford these alternatives, the only play option outside the home is the playground in their school, church or neighborhood park.

Playgrounds “Existing American playgrounds are a disaster” 8 - Dr. Susan Solomon

“The current state of playground design is a tragic failure” 9 - Landscape architect Richard Haag “The history of playgrounds is a history of bad ideas” 10 - Playground designer Rusty Keeler What exists today in the vast majority of American playgrounds is directly opposite from what experts in education and child development say that children need. Current playgrounds do not stimulate children.

They do not provide the opportunity for children to engage in multiple types of play. They do not function as a hub of community life.

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Private park in Pittsburg

They do not attract a variety of participants over the course of a single day. For all the millions of acres of land and the millions of dollars spent on play equipment, playgrounds have, bang-for-the-buck, very little play value. Why? To follow is a snapshot of what landscape architects, playground designers, environmental designers, and experts in education and child development say is wrong with playground design today in America, culled from newspaper articles, books and scientific journals:

Playgrounds Only Provide Opportunity for Physical Play, Not Other, Equally Important Types of Play Most every playground in this country features equipment designed, primarily, for physical play. In virtually every American playground, there’s the ubiquitous swing, slide and some sort of climbing apparatus. There’s nothing else there to spur a different kind of play: a stage, for instance, or dress-up clothes to spark fantasy play. Or crayons, colored paper and glitter to encourage creative play. Or even a game that requires two or more people in order for it to work, to foster collaborative play.

Playgrounds Contain Only Pre-Fabricated Equipment Prefabricated equipment has nothing to do with the way kids really learn: by exploring materials and acting on their own. Instead, America’s cookie-cutter, standardized plastic, “post-and-platform,” play structures control the experience of children by pre-determining their use: kids can go up or down steps, run across decks, go down slides. Sometimes an additional low climbing apparatus is attached to a deck. That’s about it.11 Kids don’t create their own way of doing things, get to make choices, resolve conflicts, or change anything in their environment.

Prefabricated equipment suffers the tyrany of unrelenting sameness, rarely blends in with the surrounding area, giving them an unsightly, unnatural aura. Author Susan Solomon describes them as “hulking, sterile, bizarrely-colored monsters.”

Playgrounds Are Static “Ideally, a child’s play space should never be finished, it should be in a constant state of change.”

- Susan Goltsman, a landscape architect who has designed dozens of parks.

Most playgrounds are static: as a main attraction, they feature prefabricated equipment that was installed once and has remained bolted to the ground for years, unchanged. Children, ruthless in exploiting every possible inch of play value in this fixed equipment and quickly master every nuance they offer; the playground, then, becomes dull to them and they abandon it.

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Playgrounds Do Not Have “Play Leaders” To ensure their children have rich, challenging, ever-changing environments for play, other countries employ full-time “Play Leaders” or “Play Workers” who act as caretakers of their public parks and whose role is to create a dynamic, ever-changing play environment for its children.

In America during the ‘70’s, we had something similar: full-time people staffing the recreation departments of playgrounds all over the country. They ensured that the parks ran smoothly and organized classes and activities. But with budget cuts reduced funding for recreation departments, these positions were eliminated.

Playgrounds must have a steward, a guardian, whose job is to ensure that children have rich, challenging, ever-changing environments for play. Other countries recognize this. In the United Kingdom, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Australia, parks are staffed by certified “Play Leaders” or “Play Workers.” In these countries, a Play Leader is an esteemed, nationally recognized profession. What a concept!

Playgrounds Are Too Safe “Risk is necessary in play, and children will instinctively seek it out in unsafe and life-threatening places if it is not offered in safe ones. Growth simply demands the making and overcoming of mistakes. On the other hand, not being allowed to take chances causes a debilitating timidity and fearfulness in later life.” 12 One of the ways children learn is to take reasonable risks. Children must take risks and suffer consequences in order to hone skills of judgment and learn from their mistakes. Children need practice in risk-taking if they are ever to become the next generation of inventors and entrepreneurs.

Fearing lawsuits brought on by playground accidents, equipment manufacturers have essentially “dumbed-down” play equipment to the point where many manufacturers are reluctant to market monkey bars, sliding poles or climbers for the age range 2 to 5 years. Consequently, many children become bored and turn to nonequipment forms of play or use equipment in unintended ways.

Several educators have argued that the draconian safety measures imposed by insurance companies on cities have resulted in making playgrounds overly safe, and strips away the important elements necessary for meaningful play: variety, complexity, challenge, risk, flexibility and adaptability. Because the design of so many playgrounds are void of equipment deemed “risky” by insurance companies, the playground poses few challenges and is dull to children. Dr. Joe Frost calls playgrounds today, “an administrator’s heaven and a child’s hell.”

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Play leaders provide the tools kids needs and serve as the grand masters of play

Playgrounds Are Too Tame “Few child development professionals are skillful in design, and few designers are skillful in child development.”13 - Dr. Joe Frost, Professor Emeritus, University of Texas, visionary expert on play and playground design Rather than slick, technologically-inspired, manufactured structures, children need wild places. Rather than neat and tidy, standardized playgrounds, they need play spaces that are magical, special and enchanting in quality that can unleash their sense of wonder.

They need places to dig holes, build sandcastles, watch ladybugs, hide in a secret cave, morph into a prince or princess, and get dirty.

As the guidelines/safety standards apply only to manufactured equipment, there is little guidance for communities on how to effectively integrate less expensive natural materials like sand, water, and dirt into playgrounds. Many purchasers assume that such materials and activities are hazardous, too much trouble, or a waste of time.

Children need wild places to unleash their sense of wonder

Child development experts agree that sand is essential!

In contrast, Roger Hart, co-director of the Children’s Environments Research Groups, has said that “sand enables children, at relatively low cost, to create their own environment.”15 Sand allows kids to work together or solo to mold, dig, and sift. They can explore, destroy, or create. They can get dirty!16

Playgrounds Do Not Connect with Nature “We are not just building playgrounds.We are creating children’s experiences––their memories, their childhood.What kind of memories will they have of rubber and steel and asphalt?” 17 A growing body of research shows that contact with the natural world improves physical and psychological health.18 Using nature as a backdrop for play results in an outdoor, sensory-rich, learning environment that provides a variety of play opportunities. Playgrounds with natural elements are chock-full of loose parts (sticks, dirt, stones) that allow children to manipulate the environment to create and build whatever they wish. Being and playing in nature also connects children with the seasons, the cycles of life, and other organisms that live with us on the planet.

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Nature offers children amazing sensory experiences and a chance to explore

Playgrounds Do Not Provide Play Opportunities for Children Age 0-2 Typically, playgrounds are designed for two age groups: 2-5 and 5-12. Studies suggest that play activity during infancy is much more important than previously thought, and is especially important for an infant to develop and master motor skills. Consequently, playground designers have begun to create outdoor play spaces specifically for infants and toddlers.

Playground designers also stress the importance of having all children together in a playground to achieve a “playground culture.” It’s a way for the young children to watch and learn from the older children and for the older children to guide, interact, and play with the very young.

However, to avoid the multiple safety risks created when infants crawl around in a playground designed for older kids, designers now advocate creating a “playground within a playground” – meaning that they build an exclusive space for infants that is separated from, though accessible to, the bigger playground.

Playgrounds Do Not Convey a “Sense of Place”

Playground designers are creating toddler-only spaces inside playgrounds

There is widespread interdependence between the insurance industry and standardized equipment manufacturers. Whenever other parties besides big manufacturers get involved with playground design, liability issues pop up.

Consequently, unique, custom-designed, site-specific, play spaces have lost ground to playgrounds furnished with prefabricated equipment ordered by phone, out of a catalog.

Consequently, cities, churches and schools are forced to purchase prefabricated equipment that is completely divorced from its natural surroundings and does not reflect the unique spirit of a particular community. The resulting playgrounds are not special; a playground in Alaska looks identical to the playground in Arizona. They don’t foster either a sense that the playground is unique or has a sacred “sense of place” which has been described as “the feeling that exists between people and the environments in which they live.” 19

Playgrounds Are Not a Focus of Community Life “Parks and gardens also provide an opportunity for community health, where neighbors can come together and commune on happy and neutral ground.The impact of a community garden or playground for a neighborhood where families have no outdoor place to play is enormous.There is a magic that happens on a park bench under a shade tree or on a grassy lawn where people visit, read, listen to bird song, or just sit. A different magic happens when we get our hands into the dirt of a garden plot turning or planting or harvesting or weeding.These are values that are hard to quantify but which on the margin, help make life wonderful. Communities and neighborhoods need places like these to come together and relate.There are no good substitutes.” 20

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Cookie-cutter equipment fails to blend in with environment and lacks soul.

Playgrounds can become a vital hub of community life

In countries all over the world, public playgrounds are a central hub, a vital gathering place for children and their families. As such, when playgrounds are designed, the needs of both the children and their adult caretakers are taken into consideration. In Europe, for instance, many neighborhood parks offer a place for children to play along with basic amenities for adults: things like shade, comfortable seating, snacks and restrooms. Parks are designed in ways that foster interaction and communication between families.

In the United States, there are rare instances where we design playgrounds spaces to make everyone comfortable. From the perspective of this writer, if the adults supervising the children were more comfortable in parks, they would remain longer and the children would play longer.

Parks Are Not at the Top of Our Agenda Unlike in the United States, where most playgrounds are basically standardized, limited in play function, and either unstaffed or staffed by “supervisors” or “baby-sitters,” playgrounds in Denmark and some other countries “are recognized as so important they are provided by law.” 21 In Europe and many countries in Asia, parks are viewed as necessities; generally in America, we view parks as amenities. We plop equipment into an empty space and then expect it to satisfy all the play and development needs of our children. Meanwhile, “A generation of children is growing up indoors, locked into a deadened life of television and video games, alienated from the natural world and its life-affirming benefits.”22

WHERE DO THE CHILDREN PLAY - RICHMOND Approximately 8,000 children, age 0-5, live in Richmond. Approximately 75% of these children are African-American or Latino; the majority from working class or families who are immigrants or underemployed. Thirty-four percent of African-American children under age five live below the poverty line.23 Many children live in neighborhoods that have been identified as the most dangerous in the country. For many Latino children, English is their second language.

And when these children become old enough to attend public schools, the public schools that await them are among the poorestperforming, lowest ranked, in the state.

When our young Richmond children, age 0-5, go to a park to play, there are eight“playlots” that are specifically designed for them. A quick review of each:

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Caretakers stay cool watching their children in a Parisian park

ELM PLAYLOT 8th & Elm

Entrance sign to Elm playlot tagged with graffiti

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in the heart of the Iron Triangle one pre-fabricated sliding structure, covered with graffiti one swing set six beautiful, mature liquid amber trees landscape littered with debris. On a visit to this location, I spoke with children living directly across the street from the playlot who told me that, in order to make the playground ready for a birthday party, they recently collected from the grounds two buckets of glass and shell casings from a shotgun.

CLINTON PLAYLOT Clinton & 42nd

- dirt and sand ground - one play structure: a swing - in between primary school and fire station - used solely as a spot by parents to pick up their children after school

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HUNTINGTON PLAYLOT Huntington & Carlson

- a renovated playground - two playgrounds (one for toddlers, the other for older children) - big sand box - picnic tables - benches - clean

HUMPHREY PLAYLOT Humphrey & 26th

- newly installed play equipment - no place to sit, no drinking water - play equipment is constantly being tagged

Neighbors living in close proximity to the Humphrey playlot say that the park is used by young children and families only on weekends; during the week, however, it is a frequent gathering spot for young teenagers, something I witnessed during 10+ trips to Humphrey playlot during weekdays

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MENDOCINO PLAYLOT Mendocino & Burlingame

- renovated playlot - popular with families in the evenings - people leave equipment in the playground to share with others - good community feel

MONTEREY PLAYLOT Monterey & Carl

- renovated playlot - barren feel; rarely used (on 10+ visits I witnessed children there only once - large sandbox

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SOLANO PLAYLOT Solano & 38th

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decaying, old metal play structure one set of swings litter often in park and surrounding streets bench, picnic table and play equipment consistently tagged and is painted over by Randy, who who lives across the street and doesn’t want his three-year-old daughter to read the tags - cars often abandoned on street side next to park

POINT RICHMOND PLAYLOT Washington & Nicholl

- created by the will of the residents of Pt. Richmond - only playlot that is all sand - well-kept, cared for, loved with great community vibe - this playlot is not included in the list of playlots on the city’s website

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Playlots in Richmond: A Call for Action Despite Richmond’s 55 parks and eight playlots, young children, age 0-5, have no meaningful place to play. Even Richmond’s recently renovated playlots––Humphrey, Mendocino, Monterey and Huntington––fail to provide an environment where kids can really play. In light of the new findings that connect free play to critical childhood development, it is imperative that we quickly intervene and provide thoughtful, magical, and meaningful play spaces for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

City Parks + Playlots: Comparing Richmond to Berkeley When looking at parks and recreational facilities, it is interesting to compare the city of Richmond to the city of Berkeley. Both have virtually identical total population (around 100,000) and both project similar tax revenues for 2007 ($313 million for Richmond; $310 million for Berkeley). However, Berkeley plans to spend $11 million more on their parks than Richmond does. Berkeley will spend an average of $426,000 per park; Richmond will spend $218,000.

Moreover, Berkeley’s public park system includes nine dedicated “totlots” – that is, those designed for their 4,000 children age 5 and under. By comparison, Richmond’s park system has only eight dedicated playlots in our park system to service 8,000 children age 0-5, twice the number of Berkeley. A snapshot:

City Budget 2007 Parks + Recreation Budget % of City Budget Parks Total Acreage Playgrounds for Children 2-12 Playlots for Children 0-5 Children 0-5 $ Spent Per Park

Berkeley $310 million $23 million 7.4%

Richmond $313 million $12 million 3.8%

54 240 28 9 4,000

55 334 48 8 8,000

$426,000

$218,000

Compared to Berkeley, Richmond children face an inequity in the number and quality of play spaces available for young infants and toddlers, age 0-5.

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HOW TO BRIDGE THE GAP / WHAT TO DO New Model: City and Local Nonprofit Work Together to Revitalize Public Parks In order to forge new ways to rejuvenate city parks to meet the developmental needs of children and communities, cities are entering into partnerships with nonprofit agencies to help them build, renovate, and operate urban parks.

“Public-private partnerships for parks are proliferating across the country––and generating much excitement and interest. One reason is that they work. Parks partnerships are successfully combining the assets of the public and private sectors in novel ways to create new and refurbished parks, greenways, trains, and other community assets in our cities––often in the face of municipal budget constraints.” 24 Cities are finding that they can more effectively build, renovate and maintain parks when they partner with local nonprofit agencies. The partnership allows the city to leverage public assets to attract resources and expertise to revive and sustain parks and playgrounds. With many cities under budget constraints, it is advantageous to join with a nonprofit that can then tap into funding sources that are unavailable for public agencies, such as individual donations, corporations and private foundations.

(Available with this prospectus is a “reader” that includes a study entitled, “Partnership for Parks,” a report that examines the partnerships between public agencies and nonprofit groups. In this report, there are several examples of successful partnership across the country between cities and nonprofit groups and a discussion of the emerging lessons to date.)

Additionally, there are several nonprofits that specialize in assisting local community groups who partner with cities to create, restore or revive urban parks. These nonprofits include The Trust for Public Land, The Urban Institute, and The Project for Public Spaces.

Revitalize a Park, Revitalize a Community In Richmond, a struggling city grappling with big problems (such as violent crime, erosion of its manufacturing base, lack of jobs, pollution, and an infrastructure and public morale decimated by but recovering from a period of financial duress), there is debate about what to do first, where to put the city’s resources. Urban planners, designers and community developers are finding that an effective way to inject new life into, and revitalize a community is to revitalize its parks and playgrounds.

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Parks and playgrounds are the heart and soul of community life, a vital gathering place, and provide enormous social, economic and health benefits for all its citizens. Extensive research on parks and recreation shows that parks: 1) 2) 3) 4)

increase property values of nearby homes and businesses; attract and retain businesses and residents; provide environmental benefits; make cities more livable and provide a place where neighbors can experience a sense of community; 5) reduce crime and provide recreational opportunities for citizens.25

Perhaps most importantly, the quality of a park is a direct reflection of how the city values the health and well-being of its children and families. It is the responsibility of each community to create safe and supportive environments, and provide the tools and opportunities for children to grow and develop through play.

How Much Money Will We Need We will need to immediately raise a seed grant of approximately $150,000 to cover operational, planning and preliminary design costs in the first year and also pay for the cost to set up our 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization. Thereafter, we will need to secure the funding to cover operations, design and construction expenses which will range from $250,000-$400,000 annually thereafter, depending on the number of playlots we re-create.

Where We Can Secure Funding?

Re-designing, re-imagining, and reinventing the playlots in Richmond creates a nexus of funding opportunities for foundations that are interested in supporting efforts in Richmmond to: * re-dress the inequities of play opportunities for children * develop healthy opportunities for children to grow, learn and thrive * strengthen and improve communities * revitalize urban neighborhoods * create green space for low-income families * provide a sanctuary for families and children to engage in healthy behaviors

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A review of the local, regional and national foundations that are likely to be interested in supporting a project include: Annie E. Casey Foundation Bernard & Alba Witkin Charitable Trust Bernard Osher Foundation California Endownment California Wellness Foundation Civil Society Institute Clorox David B. Gold Foundation Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream East Bay Community Foundation Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund James Irvine Foundation Koret Foundation Kresge Foundation Lawrence Weissberg Foundation Lesher Foundation Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health McKesson Foundation MetLife Foundation Miriam & Peter Haas Fund Richard & Rhonda Goldman Fund PG&E Foundation Robert Woods Johnson Foundation Salesforce.com San Francisco Foundation Skoll Foundation Stuart Foundations The David & Lucile Packard Foundation The Kaiser Foundation Thomas J. Long Foundation Trio Foundation United Way of the Bay Area UPS Foundation Vodafone-US Foundation Walter & Elise Haas Fund Whole Foods William Randolph Hearst Foundation Y & H Soda Foundation Additionally, it is possible to tap into funding from local, state and federal re-development agencies and private donations as well as generate revenue from a social-purpose venture.

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WHAT COULD BE: IDEAS FROM OTHER PARKS “Good play environments have magical qualities that transcend the here and now, the humdrum, and the typical.They have flow qualities––qualities that take the child to other places and other times.They are permeated with awe and wonder, both in reality and in imaginative qualities. Bad play environments are stark and immutable, controlled by adults, lacking resiliency and enchantment. Few dreams can be spun there, and few instincts can be played out.The wonders of nature, the joys of imagery, the delights of creating are all but lost for children restricted to such play places.Those who create play environments for children have a choice, no matter what the context––small town, city, or megalopolis.The difference lies in how we value children’s play, what we are willing to do, and how much energy we are willing to expend.” 26 The following is a compendium of images of inspiring play spaces, elements, environments, and equipment from around the world. The images are in no means a blueprint for a new park design; this must be done with the full support and participation of the community in which the playlot is located.

The sole purpose of these images is to inspire us. To get us thinking and dreaming of what could be, setting the bar high for what is possible, for what can be done here in Richmond.

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Burling Slip Playground New York City

This figure-8 shaped park, to be built on a parking lot in Manhattan is a bold experiment that integrates multiple perspectives of experts in child development, education and environmental design. The goal in creating this new playground is to create the most forward-thinking play space for children designed in this country to date. The Burling Slip playground is being created by a $2 million public-private partnership between the city and a nonprofit. The park features: * A storehouse that contains loose materials and parts such as sand, foam blocks, tubing, shovels, and wagons that children can manipulate and use on their own. * A staff of “play workers� who are trained in child development and act as the guardians of the park and the grand masters of play.

The job of a play worker is to create opportunities for children to engage in multi-dimensional play: fantasy, social, physical. * A dynamic environment: play workers vary play opportunities daily in response to the weather, time of year or the desires of the children. * Built-in seating in the play area for adults and scattered benches and tables.

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Adventure Playgrounds 1,000+ in Europe In 1943, a Danish landscape architect, CT Sorenson, noted the excitement and energy of children who played daily in an abandoned, dirt lot that was located next door to his office. Based on his observation that children find things to do with scrap materials found in construction sites, vacant lots and natural areas, he invented the concept of “Adventure Playgrounds,” also knows as “building” or “junk” playgrounds, where the playground is essentially a place to build things using scrap materials the children find. A typical Adventure Playground is fenced in and staffed with a trained “play leader,” and the children are free to do and play any way they choose.

(Note: in some European countries, being a “play leader” is a profession.)

Getting any of this type of facility to catch on in America has been a great struggle because of safety concerns in spite of the fact that the rate of accidents proved less than in traditional playgrounds.27

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Children’s Center New York State Here, the designers masterfully interweave the play equipment with a sense of openness in the natural world.

24

Jardins de Luxembourg Paris

* fence surrounds the playground * basic amenities for adults: comfortable seating and shade * a variety of challenging activities

25

Kiba & Asukayama Parks Tokyo * Water as a central play element * A streaming river with moveable rocks

26

Children’s Discovery Museum Sausalito * chalkboard underneath a shaded hut for quiet play * magical structures * biodiverse terrain: hills, tunnels * a stage for make-up games * water element for play

27

Natural Playscapes Varying locations

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Visionary Play Areas

Noguchi’s Playscapes was built in Piedmont Park, Atlanta in 1976

Renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi designed this slide for a park in Tokyo

Designer M. Paul Friedberg’s “vest pocket” parks transformed abandoned urban lots “Gopher Holes” cut into cement with sand bottom in Palo Alto park

Children find tons to do with only tires and trikes on a Manhattan rooftop

Playing for hours in a warped tree

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FOOTNOTES 1, 2 3

Newsweek, cover “Your Child’s Brain” 1996

Frost, “Neuroscience, Play and Child Development,” paper presented at the IPA/USA Triennial National Conference 1998

4, 5, 7

Frost, “Neuroscience, Play and Child Development,” paper presented at the IPA/USA Triennial National Conference 1998

6

Frost, Wortham, Reifel, “Play and Child Development” 2001

8

Solomon, “American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space” p.1, 2005

9

Solomon, “American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space” p.85, letter to the author, 2005

10

Keeler, “Environments for the Soul” article in Landscape Architect and Specifier News, March 2001

11

Solomon, “American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space” p. 84, 2005

12

Frost and Talbot, article published in “Childhood Education,” Fall 1989

13

Frost, Wortham, Reifel, “Play and Child Development.” p. 431. 2001

14

Nabhan & Trimble, “The Geography of Childhood:Why Children Need Wild Places,” 1994

15

Brown, “In City Parks: A Childhood Joy is Now a Rarity,” New York Times, May 11, 1995

16

Solomon, “American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space.” p.81, 2005

17

Keeler, “Environments for the Soul” article in Landscape Architect and Specifier News, March 2001

18

Sherer, “The Benefit of Parks,” 2003 Trust for Public Land

19

Moore and Wong: “Natural Learning: Creating Environments for Rediscovering Nature’s Ways of Teaching” 1997

20

Will Rogers, Executive Director of Trust for Public Land in text of his speech to Cleveland Parks Symposium, September 2005

21

Lambert, “Adventure Playgrounds: A Book for Play Leaders” 1992

22

Sherer, “The Benefit of Parks,” 2003 Trust for Public Land

23

2000 Census

24

Wallace, “Partnership for Parks,” report published by the Urban Institute, April 1999

25

Sherer, “The Benefit of Parks,” 2003 Trust for Public Land

26

Frost, Wortham, Reifel, “Play and Child Development.” p. 455-6, 2005

27

Bengtsson, Adventure Playgrounds, 149

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