How did our new Play Equipment Come About at the Park?

It just appeared one day in January, but do you wonder how it got there? It was quite a process according to Wendy Kelly, who spearheaded the lengthy process, along with her committee of volunteers.

Wendy was a recent recipient of the Good Neighbor award, and was given great kudos for working so hard and long with the City in bringing us some new play equipment at our park for all our neighborhood kids and beyond. Wendy tells the Laurelhurst Blog Staff, "I think it's a big improvement over those infant swings we had before, and I was pleased that we could get new equipment without having to take much out."

Wendy initially called the City to find out what would be involved in getting toddler equipment in the park because "I felt there wasn't anything for small children. At the time I had a 3 year old and 3 - 1 year olds, so I obviously was interested in equipment for young kids."

The project, Wendy says, took about 15 months from the first phone call to the City to the installation, which Wendy says is quite fast for the City. Wendy said she was very persistent and the city relented with her request for an initial ask of just one new piece of equipment.

Wendy then did a lot research into the Neighborhood Matching grants and talked with other Seattle residents who had been heavily involved in playground renovations and learned a great deal from talking with them.

She also posted on the NE Seattle Moms Yahoo group website to recruit volunteers for a committee and got a lot of interest. The committee came up with the name Play it Safe at Laurelhurst Park - and also came up with a logo and wrote a solicitation letter to the neighborhood.

Wendy said "to save on postage we hand delivered every letter, which I think also helped the letters get read. We needed to raise $10,000 to have enough money for the project, (along with the matching grant) and we surpassed our goal by over
$2,000 in less than 1 month! It was an amazing outpouring of neighborhood support, including many people that don't have young kids or grandkids in the neighborhood. We then applied for and received approval of a Neighborhood Matching Grant of $15,000."

Next in the process were two community meetings to discuss what equipment to remove, and what equipment to purchase. These meetings were attended by the committee and a few other community members. The choosing of the color of the equipment was a "lively debate!" Wendy tell us.

Wendy worked with various companies - equipment removal, concrete, and wood chip, as well as the playground equipment company to orchestrate all of the many logistics of getting the site ready, ordering the equipment and installing it. Wendy recruited volunteers for the day of installation "(mostly wonderful men in the neighborhood) and had beautiful weather for a smooth installation in January of this year." She also worked with the City Parks Department and Associated Recreation Council (our fiscal agent who handled the money) every step of the way.

And that's how our new play equipment came about. A long process that Wendy diligently and persistently stuck with. And from the looks on children's faces at the park it was well worth it. The little house always has many kids making lattes for their parents!

Thanks Wendy for all you and your committee did.

But..more work needs to be done so stay tuned tomorrow about how you can help.

Here is Wendy and Kristy Petersen (another Laurelhurst neighbor) on installation day and a picture of more volunteers helping spread all the new gravel.