LET’S PLAY: DESIGNED BY KIDS, BUILT BY VOLUNTEERS Mayor Rahm Emanuel, A Safe Haven, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, and KaBOOM! Build New Playground and Plant Urban Farm in Six Hours for Homeless Children and Their Parents
CHICAGO – Homeless children in Chicago received a new playground thanks to efforts from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and hundreds of volunteers from Dr Pepper Snapple Group, A Safe Haven, and the non-profit KaBOOM!.
The child-designed playground was fully assembled from scratch in less than eight hours with the help of 300 volunteers on Saturday, Sept. 10 at A Safe Haven’s transitional living facility (2750 West Roosevelt Road). Volunteers gathered for a kickoff ceremony at 8:30 a.m. and completed the playground project in time for a closing ceremony at 2:30 p.m.
Emanuel is seeking to eliminate Chicago’s food deserts, including that of North Lawndale, home of the project and A Safe Haven’s headquarters (among 16 total sites). Accordingly, volunteers also completed an organic urban garden, and the children learned about nutrition, gardening, and exercise while helping mix the soil.
During the course of the day, volunteers mixed and moved more than 20,000 pounds of concrete and moved 51,840 square feet of safety surfacing by hand – enough to cover more than 11 NBA-sized basketball courts. The new 2,586 square-foot playground includes equipment for children of all ages and abilities, including a Triple Racer Slide, an Inclined Cliff Hanger and a Rockblocks Climbing Wall.
The homeless children and their parents are residing at A Safe Haven and becoming self-sufficient through programs that teach healthy lifestyles while providing housing, education, and employment. A Safe Haven is one of the only programs in Illinois where homeless families can stay together while they work towards self-sufficiency, and has some of the highest success rates in the nation.
Produce from the garden will help provide residents at A Safe Haven with over 900 daily meals, which are prepared by trainees in A Safe Haven’s Food Service Professional Institute. The Institute places the vast majority of graduates into sustainable employment, helping them and their children return to self-sufficiency.
“A Safe Haven is so excited that our homeless children now have a place to laugh, smile, play, and just be kids, while we empower their parents to support their families,” said A Safe Haven Co-Founder and President Neli Vazquez-Rowland. “We are grateful to Mayor Emanuel for his participation, and we hope to help the mayor as he seeks to transform the city, continuing our 17-year history of putting homeless Chicagoans back to work sustainably, with their families, and in their own homes.”
Planning for the playground began at a Design Day event held in June when local children and community leaders met with organizers from Dr Pepper Snapple Group, A Safe Haven and KaBOOM! to design their dream playground. The children's drawings were then used to create the final playground design.
"We were thrilled to work with the City of Chicago, A Safe Haven and KaBOOM! to bring these kids' dream playground to life," said Tina Barry, executive vice president, corporate affairs at Dr Pepper Snapple Group. "Let's Play is committed to helping communities get active, and this new playground represents an important step in that direction."
KaBOOM! is a national non-profit organization dedicated to saving play. For 15 years, KaBOOM! has been fighting the Play Deficit, and this project is one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! will lead across the country in 2011 in an effort to provide a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.
“KaBOOM! was honored to assist in building a new playground with Mayor Emanuel that will benefit thousands of children for years to come,” said KaBOOM! Founder and CEO Darell Hammond. “Every child deserves to have a great place to play and we made that possible for children in Chicago, while bringing KaBOOM! one step closer to our vision of a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.”
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About A Safe Haven A Safe Haven empowers families and individuals experiencing homelessness or crisis to achieve sustainable self-sufficiency. After a crisis struck their own family, Neli Vazquez-Rowland and Brian Rowland left their jobs in finance to found A Safe Haven in 1994. Frustrated by the fragmented services available, Neli and Brian integrated supportive housing, case management, addiction treatment, education, and life skills, with a network of affordable housing, industry training, and job placement (including landscaping, food service, security, housekeeping, and customer service) at A Safe Haven. Now people in crisis, particularly the homeless, have a comprehensive, integrated path to self-sufficiency and independence. After finishing a program customized to each resident’s needs, A Safe Haven graduates thrive as they contribute to society. Graduates earned $3.2 million and paid nearly $500,000 in taxes in 2010, due to some of the United States’ highest job placement and retention rates, measured by the Department of Labor. At a time when economic and political realities demand a new approach, A Safe Haven helps people help themselves, partnering public and private interests to deliver a sustainable, evidence-based social business enterprise model that makes a direct and lasting impact. With 16 sites, and growing, throughout Cook County, Illinois, A Safe Haven has been lauded by academic, policy, and business leaders for developing the model to solve homelessness and crisis. A Safe Haven relies on public and private support at every level. Learn more and watch a video of A Safe Haven’s children designing the playground at www.ASafeHaven.org or www.Facebook.com/ASafeHavenFoundation.
About Dr Pepper Snapple Group Dr Pepper Snapple Group (NYSE: DPS) is the leading producer of flavored beverages in North America and the Caribbean. Our success is fueled by more than 50 brands that are synonymous with refreshment, fun and flavor. We have 6 of the top 10 non-cola soft drinks, and 9 of our 12 leading brands are No. 1 in their flavor categories. In addition to our flagship Dr Pepper and Snapple brands, our portfolio includes Sunkist soda, 7UP, A&W, Canada Dry, Crush, Mott's, Squirt, Hawaiian Punch, Penafiel, Clamato, Schweppes, Venom Energy, Rose's and Mr & Mrs T mixers. To learn more about our iconic brands and Plano, Texas-based company, please visit www.drpeppersnapple.com.
About Let’s Play Let’s Play is a community partnership led by Dr Pepper Snapple Group (NYSE: DPS) to get kids and families active nationwide. The first Let’s Play initiative is a $15 million, three-year commitment to KaBOOM!, the national non-profit that’s saving play. Together, through Let’s Play, DPS and KaBOOM! will build or fix up 2,000 playgrounds by the end of 2013, benefiting an estimated five million children across North America. For more information, visit Let’s Play on Facebook at www.facebook.com/letsplay or online at www.LetsPlay.com. About KaBOOM! KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to saving play. Children today spend less time playing outdoors than any previous generation, a fact that is having disastrous consequences on their health, achievement levels, and overall well-being. To fight this Play Deficit, social entrepreneur Darell Hammond founded non-profit KaBOOM! 15 years ago in Washington, D.C. with a vision of creating a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Since then, KaBOOM! has mapped over 85,000 places to play, built more than 2,000 playgrounds, and successfully advocated for play policies in hundreds of cities across the country. KaBOOM! also provides communities with online tools to self-organize and take action to support play on both a local and national level. Hammond chronicles the founding of the organization and the importance of the cause of play in his TheNew York Times Best Seller KaBOOM!: How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play. The book details how businesses and communities can work together to save play for children across the country. All author proceeds support KaBOOM!. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., KaBOOM! also has offices in Chicago and San Mateo, Calif. For more information, visit www.kaboom.org.
