Mayor Shirley Franklin to accept grant check from KaBOOM!
Mayor Shirley Franklin will accept an award of $25,000 to help Atlanta’s children get great places to play. The grant check will be presented to the Mayor by Jim Hunn, Vice President of the KaBOOM! National Campaign for Play, during a news conference on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 10:30 AM at City Hall in the 2nd Floor Media Area.
This KaBOOM! grant award is the culmination of a year of work by the Atlanta Taskforce On Play (ATOP) which works to bring play back into the lives of Atlanta’s children. KaBOOM! is a national nonprofit that empowers communities to build playgrounds. In 2007, the organization launched its Playful City USA recognition program, which honors communities that fulfill five commitments to the cause of play. To receive this recognition, Atlanta had to
- Create a Local Play Commission Task Force
- Design an annual Action Plan for play
- Conduct a Playspace Audit of all publicly accessible play areas
- Identify current spending on capital projects and maintenance of playspaces
- Proclaim and Celebrate an annual “Play Day”
Atlanta, along with 30 other communities across the nation, became the founding KaBOOM! Playful City USA communities. After submitting a compelling grant application, and entering a video in an online voting contest, Atlanta quickly raced to the front of the pack, with thousands of individuals across the nation voting for Atlanta to win the top prize. (The video can be viewed at http://kaboom.shycast.com/contestant/27/)
The initiative that won the grant is called “Atlanta: A Playground for Every Child by 2010” The aggressive goal of this Playful Atlanta 2010 initiative is to have a playspace near every child in Atlanta by the end of 2010. The grant to support that goal is a result of an effort mounted by the Atlanta Taskforce on Play (ATOP) in conjunction with the City’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs.
Atlantans have already come together to get Playful Atlanta 2010 started. Atlanta celebrities such as Dominique Wilkins, CNN’s Fredericka Whitfield, Mi Lan (the panda), several City Council Members and Mayor Shirley Franklin gave their time to appear in the video. Cinema Concepts paid for a film crew and donated all of the post-production to make the video happen. Non-profits Park Pride and Atlanta ToolBank were the first to jump in as partners.
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For more information about this and services of the City of Atlanta visit our website at www.atlantaga.gov or watch City Channel 26
KaBOOM! is a national non-profit organization that envisions a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Since 1995, KaBOOM! has used its innovative community-build model to bring together business and community interests to construct more than 1,300 new playgrounds, skateparks, sports fields and ice rinks across North America. KaBOOM! also offers a variety of resources, including an online community, regional and national trainings, grants, publications and the KaBOOM! National Campaign for Play, which includes Playful City USA and the Playmaker Network – a national network of individual advocates for play. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., KaBOOM! also has offices in Chicago, Atlanta and San Mateo, CA. For more information, visit www.kaboom.org.