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Month: November 2018
Northfield’s New Playground Supports Kids 0-5 years and their Families!
Northfield Promise Community Celebrates the Opening of New Playground
Northfield, Vermont – October 10, 2018
Friday the Northfield Promise Community celebrated the culmination of years of hard work and hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of planning, meeting, and physical labor at the new playground off of Burnham Road in Northfield Falls. This project began two years ago as part of the State of Vermont’s Promise Community initiative where the community came together to apply for a grant to improve kindergarten readiness for children in the Northfield Community. Through the Promise Community initiative each group is free to work together to come up with the solution that best fits their community. Through a series of community gatherings and community-led conversations, the Northfield Promise Community determined that there was a lack in safe, accessible play spaces for young children and they set about finding a location and planning a playground. With the partnership and support of Green Mountain United Way, the town of Northfield, the school district, and many, many community members, this plan and playground began to take shape.
The Northfield Promise Community hired local landscape designer and Northfield parent Bonnie Kirn Donahue to act as project manager and with Landscape Structures to purchase and lead the community in the installation of the major elements for the playground as part of the “community build” process. The work took place over the course of 5 days. Volunteers and community members showed up, brought tools, tractors, food and energy to see the project through to completion. Norwich University cadets volunteered each day alongside parents, community members, and organizers.
The playground is geared toward ages 0-6, and is filled with multi-sensory experiences such as a playhouse and mud kitchen for imaginary play, musical instruments, blueberry bushes, rock garden, walking track, pretend car, friendship swing, and more. The play space is enclosed by a fence and is ready for the children and families in our community to enjoy it!
Friday, September 28th at 4pm the community kicked off the grand opening with a popsicle party and ribbon cutting attended by many families, children, and community members eager to celebrate the completion of this exciting community project.
The playground is located near the baseball fields off of Burnham Road in Northfield Falls and everyone with young children is encouraged to go and enjoy the result of this incredible community effort.
About the Northfield Promise Community:
The Northfield Promise Community was formed in 2016 as a result of the State of Vermont’s Promise Community Initiative which grants communities funds to be used to help the children within that community ages 0-5 kindergarten ready. The Northfield Promise Community was made up entirely of volunteer community members, parents, and town leaders who worked to gather the community’s vision and turn it into actionable projects. The Northfield Promise Community will also be working on a second installation at the Brown Public Library in Northfield as part of this project.
About Green Mountain United Way: Green Mountain United Way is a Vermont not-for-profit organization in operation since 1976. They work to improve the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community in Caledonia, Essex, Orange, Orleans and Washington Counties by mobilizing the caring power of communities around our region to advance the common good. No other single organization has the scope and influence to bring together human service agencies, government, businesses, private foundations and dedicated volunteers around a common vision of creating maximum impact and achieving long-lasting results.
