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Vicki Builds a Playground

In our October issue of Children' Learning Environments eNewsletter, we reported that Vicki Stoecklin, our Education and Child Development Director, would be spending two days at Play University which covered training on how to use community resources to build your own playground sponsored by the organization called KABOOM! The training was excellent and Vicki came home with four new books for our ever-growing library:

• The Community Build Playground Manual
• Playground Owner's Manual
• A to Z Assets & Resources Handbook
• The Community Fundraising Idea Kit (A real keeper!)

KABOOM has in addition, a new book called, The Child-Care Playspace Planning Guide, which we have not yet reviewed, but can be purchased on their website at www.Kaboom.org.

Vicki was one of 200 volunteers who worked at the one-day community-build
to construct a playground at the Primitivo Garcia school in Kansas City.

The culminating event for the training was a day-long community-build where Vicki joined 200 other volunteers, parents and children in investing sweat power to build an outdoor play space for a Spanish language school here in Kansas City called Primitivo Garcia. The day was exhausting as Vicki and the other volunteers worked from 8 AM to 3 PM to put together the climbing structure, a swing set, gardening beds and a jungle gym. They even installed the safety surfacing, which involved hauling engineered wood fiber on tarps. Vicki says, "We were proud and I can't explain how fulfilling the experience was when the children arrived at 3 to cut the ribbons to the new play yard. Talk about a day's work! I would highly recommend this experience to any of you who are getting ready to construct or renovate your play yard, but remember to take along the Advil!"

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