It's 10 a.m. on a sunny Friday, and well over 100 volunteers are hard at work next to the Ryan R-Center and Iris Banister School 33 spreading mulch, pouring concrete, setting posts, and assembling play equipment.
They're building a playground, which will be finished in time for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 2:30 p.m. Occasionally, clanging or the sound of power tools cuts through the energizing music pumping out of a speaker.
"It feels amazing," Nahmese Bacot, who lives near the playground, said during a pause in her work.
But this isn't just any old playground that they're building on Webster Avenue in the Beechwood neighborhood. It's the result of a partnership between the Healthi Kids advocacy group, the national play equity advocacy organization KABOOM!, the city of Rochester, and corporate sponsor Sierra (formerly known as Sierra Trading Post).
They gathered significant input from parents and children in the community and used that feedback to come up with the design. For example, a spinner element was added at the suggestion of one child, and the colors were selected to match the schemes of the adjoining school and community center.
And then this past Friday, a corps of volunteers showed up to build it, with some staff from the partners also getting their hands dirty.
"I live in this area and I'm able to say, you know, I actually had hands on decision-making and making it better," Bacot said.
She was involved in every step of the process and added that her 3-year-old son is excited for the new play space.
The new equipment also includes a large play structure with three slides, two sets of swings, some climbing elements, and play panels — one of which illustrates the alphabet in American Sign Language.
"Ultimately, every kid deserves an outstanding place to play, and that doesn't just mean having a new play space, but that means having a play space that's engaging, that has things that are interesting for multiple ages," said Jesse Knoth, PLAY ROCs coordinator for Healthi Kids.
Just the start
Communities across the country have worked with KABOOM! to design and build play spaces that are driven by community wants and needs. It worked with Rochester groups a few years ago to create the Grand Avenue Adventure Park in the Beechwood neighborhood, for example.
A few years ago, the nonprofit launched its "25 in 5 Initiative to End Playspace Inequity." It plans to work with 25 communities over five years to help make access to play spaces more equitable. KABOOM! chose Rochester as one of the communities.
Peter Christophersen, project manager for KABOOM!, said it's been well-established that playgrounds allow children to experience physical, mental, sociological, and psychological benefits.
"They learn to make friends, they learn challenges, they learn to take risks," Christophersen said. "And playgrounds are a community gathering space where children's parents, caregivers, multigenerational residents come together and it's a meeting place."
The Ryan center playground is the first one borne of this effort, but Knoth said it won't be the last.
"This is the start of a lot of investment in playgrounds," Knoth said. "So ... there's a lot more to come. And I hope that folks get excited about, you know, our future builds as well."
Future projects will be targeted and intentional. In addition to conducting intense community engagement in developing the projects, KABOOM! also reviews census and environmental data, and information from the city on the conditions of various play spaces to help prioritize projects.
For example, the Ryan R-Center was selected in part because it was quite old and it was far from the buildings at the site, making supervision difficult. The project was also in line with the city government's priority of locating play spaces at R-Centers and schools.
Not only is the playground next to a school, a recreation center, and a splash pad, there's also a library and heavily used fields and courts for different sports.
"This will be a lot nicer for families to come and play here," Knoth said, "and the kids can go back and forth between the playground and spray park and picnic and all that and make a whole day out of it."
