Our parks and playgrounds are our backyards, community fitness centers and nature preserves.

Running, jumping and climbing gets the legs moving and the heart pumping. Kids who participate in physically active play at least two or three times a week are twice as likely to be fit than those who stay in the house watching television and video games, according to studies by KaBOOM! a grant making organization which supports playground development across the U.S.

“Without playgrounds, we lose our sense of community and a bit of ourselves,” says Kim Morgan, the executive director of KaBOOM!

After generations of neglect, urban playscapes are having a renaissance. Some have a full-blown playscape with slides, turrets, climbing walls and merry-go-rounds. Others are pocket parks with a hop scotch patch. Still others are a tire swing outside a health clinic.

These play areas are essential to raising healthy, creative and energized children.

KaBOOM! President James Siegal says one in three kids is obese or overweight and many lack critical 21st century skills such as creativity, problem-solving, resilience and empathy that come from playing on a playground.

Since 1996, the Washington D.C.-based KaBOOM! has built, opened or improved 16,000 playgrounds throughout the nation and organized more than one million volunteers. Sixty-nine of those playgrounds are in Michigan … 32 in Detroit and 16 in Grand Rapids.

In June 2014, KaBOOM! Amway and 300 volunteers built a playground at the Grand Rapids Ellington Academy of Arts and Technology. Volunteers moved 76,788 square feet of safety surfacing by hand, carried brightly colored playground equipment and helped design a big jungle gym with a built in tambourine and drum.

“Everything that helps children run, jump, laugh and play helps expend energy so they can focus better in the classroom,” said Israel Ausua Jr., principal at the Ellington Academy, which is a free public school with a specialized curriculum that integrates arts and technology in its rigorous high-performing core curriculum. The new playground helped the school attract more children and allowed students to expend bottled up energy.

Ana Aleman-Putnam, the principal of nearby Burton Elementary, laments the children have no playground at her school, only a small soccer field. She was happy to hear Ellington’s playground is only a few blocks from her school and available to the public after classroom hours. She takes her own daughters, Stella Luna and Paloma, to Wilcox Park across town where they can play on monkey bars, a merry-go-round and a stylized space ship.

Play and physical activity are concepts so important that the Michigan Recreation and Parks Association and the Michigan Department of Community Health issued six “active living” grants to reduce obesity rates and promote overall health.

Last fall the organizations gave a total of $75,000 to agencies that proposed increasing physical activity through walking campaigns, park initiatives, way-finding signage, physical activity education and distribution of information in urban areas. Among the awards were stipends to Genesee, Muskegon, Berrien, Wayne and Tuscola counties to improve their parks.

None of these organizations can raise enough money to build all the playgrounds needed in cities big and small. And, Ann Conklin, a spokesperson for Michigan Recreation and Parks Association, points out there is no central listing of urban parks and playscapes available.

There are other sticking points that must be overcome.

The pressing needs of modern society make it hard for parents to pack a bag of snacks, dress children appropriate for weather and find time to supervise an hour in the park. Some neighborhoods also are too dangerous to send kids out by themselves.

“It boils down to one thing,” says Bruno Tager of KaBOOM! “We, as a community, have to put children first. Think of how to make playscapes scaleable.”

KaBOOM! is championing a concept it calls “playability,” which would install pop up parks or small groupings of play equipment outside laundromats, churches and convenience stores.

For a small amount of money, a community could raise funds for a climbing wall on the side of a building, paint a square in a parking lot as a hopscotch board or place a couple of swings next to a bus stop.

What’s needed, says KaBOOM!, is cities and towns and leaders from every sector working together to turn “playscapes and all spaces into transformative theaters of activity, inspiration and discovery … and, in the process, to change minds and habits.”

In Grand Rapids, citizens passed a millage to enhance the city’s parks and recreations. Two new playgrounds will go up in Roosevelt and Garfield Parks where active neighborhood associations will help keep the parks safe and clean.

“A playground is more than a playground,” says Kristine Austria, spokesperson for KaBOOM! “It’s a brain-expander, friend-maker and muscle-builder. Play is central to a child’s ability to grow into a productive adult.”

To find out more about KaBOOM! and what it can do in your neighborhood go to https://KaBOOM.org/. Check out the Michigan Fitness Foundation-sponsored GOguide to get additional information on area activities.

Lead photo courtesy of The Kresge Foundation

  City Transformation, Healthy Cities, KaBoom!, Michigan Fitness Foundation, parks, Physical Fitness