Volunteers from the community, Friends of the Parks, Kohl’s Department Store, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago Wolves and Northwestern University pitched in over two-days (June 18 and June 19) and constructed a new playground in Grand Crossing Park.
Click here to view photo album of the playground build
Located in the West Chatham community at 7655 South Ingleside, this was the first community-built playground in a Chicago Park in nearly a decade!
Almost 100 volunteers started at 8:00 in the morning and worked in the strong summer sun throughout the two days to install play equipment including 5 slides, a six-panel climbing wall, two sets of swings, tunnels, bridges, platforms, chain climbers and towers.
Teams of volunteers installed 4”-thick colorful rubber mat squares, weighing 25 pounds each. The distribution and the installation of the rubber surface squares provided quite a work out for the volunteers!
The playground was landscaped with new sod surrounding the perimeter. Five full pallets of sod were unloaded, moved and installed around the sides of the playground. The rolls of sod weighed 40 pounds each, offering the volunteers an opportunity for a real work out!
The playground is fully accessible to children of all abilities and cost $220,000 to build. At 6,000 square feet in size, it is one of the largest playgrounds in Chicago! Funding came from two sources: Kohl’s Department Stores donated $120,000 through Children’s Memorial Hospital and State Representative Marlow Colvin secured $100,000 from the State of Illinois.
The Chicago Tribune ran a front page story entitled “On South Side, a forlorn treasure is grand again” on Saturday, June 19, 2010. If you missed the article, you can check out the link at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-grand-crossing-park-rebuilding20100618,0,309459.story.
Before of Grand Crossing Park
Volunteers building the playground
