New kid-designed playground built at Boys & Girls Club of Dayton

DAYTON — Hundreds of children in the West Dayton area will soon have a new state-of-the-art playground to enjoy.

Volunteers from the Boys & Girls Club of Dayton and the CarMax Foundation, in partnership with the national non-profit KABOOM!, spent Friday constructing the new playground at the Boys & Girls Club of Dayton, located at 1821 W. Stewart St.

In a release, the organization said kids at the Boys & Girls Club submitted drawings of their dream playgrounds to project organizers. Those ideas were then integrated into the new playground design.

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Tara Marlow, Chief Executive Officer for Boys & Girls Club of Dayton, told News Center 7 that the previous playground structures were “dilapidated” and said children were not able to play on them.

Marlow said the new playground will provide children a safe place to be outside and create healthy movement, something Marlow said was important with the new Delta variant rising.

“Currently, right now, the Delta variant has increased our rise in Covid cases and so we want to make sure that this playspace creates and makes sure [kids] are outside and have a safe place to come, [and are] not just locked indoors,” Marlow said.

Marlow said the playground will serve as a “stepping stone” for their Smart Move program, which increases youth development.

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The project had been in the works for four or five months. Marlow said the organization applied for a grant through KABOOM! and were selected as the recipient of the one grant awarded in the Dayton area.

The CarMax Foundation provided the majority of the funding through its national partnership with KABOOM!, a non-profit that works to achieve playspace equity.

Dan Turner, the location manager at CarMax Dayton, said that through their partnership with KABOOM!, CarMax is focused on giving back to the community and providing safe places for kids to play.

The playground is not officially opened yet. According to Marlow, it needs to sit and settle for 72 hours.

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