From empty to a playground in 6 hours, Let’s Play and KaBOOM! Build again

This post is brought to you by Let’s Play, an initiative by Dr Pepper Snapple Group that provides kids and families with the tools, places and inspiration to make active play a daily priority by building and improving playgrounds and donating sports equipment to groups in need. I’m a Let’s Play Ambassador and was compensated for this post. All opinions are my own.

Playgrounds complete a neighborhood; they allow kids to socialize, learn and simply play. Families are the backbone to a neighborhood, because their bonds keep children and families there for generations.  In East Point, a community in the metro Atlanta area, a brand new playground is there for generations of kids to play with at the John D. Milner Athletic Complex courtesy of Let’s Play.

This is a complex that was just down the street from where I used to live. The old playground did anything but attract play. Its colors were dated and the play aspects that it had weren’t as interactive as today’s kids require.

Call it the influence of Ninja Warrior or the increased athleticism of today’s children, but they need more than four-chain steps, monkey bars and a platform.

The new playground that the City of East Point got installed thanks to Let’s Play, an initiative by Dr Pepper Snapple Group that provides kids and families with the tools, places and inspiration to make active play a daily priority and nonprofit partner KaBOOM!, has a much bigger footprint, more equipment, two additional play stations and two shade shelters. More importantly, it has the modern elements of play that young children crave.

How did we ever survive without a fake rock wall to climb up, over or through you wonder? That feature is the most popular one on every playground that the kids and I visit. It’s the equivalent of asking what CDs you had in your collection in the late ‘90s. You’ll do that and then do some other things, like climb some stairs and zip down the slide.

There are also two balance beams, with separate divisions every two feet so they’ll separate easily. They turn quickly and you all but have to be a cat if you’re able to actually walk across them. I look forward to going back to this park with the kids to see if they are able to do this. When I was a kid we just had that large barrel drum with handles on each side and I still fell off after four steps!

The younger kids at the playground are represented by a brand new teeter totter, swing set and alphabet/number activities low enough for them to reach without climbing anything. It wasn’t until our kids turned 2 years old that I realized how much fun the interactive alphabet and number stations are at playgrounds. These are metallic, traced out boards that allows small children to touch, trace or tag them. This is an integral part to total physical response learning that can help kids learn something for the first time or ESL students fully understand a language much quicker.

All of this playground construction started with 100+ volunteers arriving in the early morning. After a quick introduction (and snack!) they divided up into small groups. Some assembled the major parts of the playground and then carried them over to where they were laid into their soon-to-be concrete filled holes. There was also lots of mulch. There was two feet of mulch over an approximate 1,400 square foot area. It was the largest pile of mulch I’d ever seen and its depth was felt by how deep you stepped into the playground, knowing that by day’s end it had to be level to the concrete.

And with the help of this pack it was built. A process that normally takes weeks was accomplished in six hours thanks to the community and corporate volunteers. What they left behind will shape generations of play for thousands of children. Because at the end of the day, the importance of play and its benefits to children can pay lifelong dividends.

To learn more about how Let’s Play is helping to build playgrounds in other communities and for active play ideas that you can do with your family, visit LetsPlay.com.