Murray Club Care to Play
September 24, 2010 – Murray, UT
Grants
The effect this Play Day will have on the community
Play Day Grants brought to you by:
Supporting healthy kids inside and out.
Encouraging kids to be physically active for 60 minutes every day.
Why are you planning a Play Day for your community?
Unifying our Club members, parents and community is one of our main objectives at the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Valley. A Play Day is exactly the type of event that helps us promote unity, community service and inclusion of everyone, no matter their socioeconomic status.
Play is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children. Despite the benefits derived from play for both children and parents, time for free play has been markedly reduced for some children. In today's modern world, free time to play has lessened due to changes in family structure and over scheduling.
Our Play Day was a great kick-off event for our school-year community service efforts. Each school-year we engage our Club kids in at least 30 service-learning projects that teach youth the importance of being a good citizen as well as other academic and social skills. The Play Day helped us a launch a new year of service while giving our Club members the opportunity to be themselves and have fun!
Play is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children. Despite the benefits derived from play for both children and parents, time for free play has been markedly reduced for some children. In today's modern world, free time to play has lessened due to changes in family structure and over scheduling.
Our Play Day was a great kick-off event for our school-year community service efforts. Each school-year we engage our Club kids in at least 30 service-learning projects that teach youth the importance of being a good citizen as well as other academic and social skills. The Play Day helped us a launch a new year of service while giving our Club members the opportunity to be themselves and have fun!
How would you use a grant to improve your playspace?
We were greeted to Little Cottonwood Creek's flood waters on the opening day for our Summer 2010 session. While we were able to save the Club facility through our sandbagging efforts, our play ground, back field, gardens and volleyball court were destroyed. This grant will help us get our outdoor play space back into shape while also incorporating kids and families into the project work.
Playground - Thanks to Murray City, the ground has been re-surfaced with wood chips; however, the play structure is at least 10 years old and isn't user-friendly for our 3 to 4 year olds. We would like to incorporate newer structures that are suitable for younger kids.
Garden - We have three, 20 foot long raised beds. In the past, we have used our gardens to teach our kids life science as well as the art of gardening. Additionally, the food produced in our gardens is donated to families in need.
Sand Volley Ball Court - Most of the sand was lost in the flood so now its basically dirt. We would like to re-sand the court and install a new net.
Back Field - This field is commonly used to play games like football and soccer; but since the flood, it has been too damp and muddy to even put our football goal posts and soccer nets on them. We are working with the city to mitigate this problem; however, a grant would expedite the solution by allowing us to re-seed the field with grass and fix any other flooding issues.
This grant has the potential to have a profound impact on our play space by enhancing our damaged field, volley ball court, play ground and gardens. We realize that having a lot of community input and postings on the Play Day website helps our chances of getting funded; but we just wanted to mention that having to Register to log-in and make a comment or post a photo was a barrier for a lot of our community members simply because they are not as technically savvy nor do they have access to computers. Furthermore, many of our staff tried to comment/post but there were problems with the website being down at the time they tried to post.
We hope that you will find our application, cause and project compelling enough to consider the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Valley as a finalist.
Playground - Thanks to Murray City, the ground has been re-surfaced with wood chips; however, the play structure is at least 10 years old and isn't user-friendly for our 3 to 4 year olds. We would like to incorporate newer structures that are suitable for younger kids.
Garden - We have three, 20 foot long raised beds. In the past, we have used our gardens to teach our kids life science as well as the art of gardening. Additionally, the food produced in our gardens is donated to families in need.
Sand Volley Ball Court - Most of the sand was lost in the flood so now its basically dirt. We would like to re-sand the court and install a new net.
Back Field - This field is commonly used to play games like football and soccer; but since the flood, it has been too damp and muddy to even put our football goal posts and soccer nets on them. We are working with the city to mitigate this problem; however, a grant would expedite the solution by allowing us to re-seed the field with grass and fix any other flooding issues.
This grant has the potential to have a profound impact on our play space by enhancing our damaged field, volley ball court, play ground and gardens. We realize that having a lot of community input and postings on the Play Day website helps our chances of getting funded; but we just wanted to mention that having to Register to log-in and make a comment or post a photo was a barrier for a lot of our community members simply because they are not as technically savvy nor do they have access to computers. Furthermore, many of our staff tried to comment/post but there were problems with the website being down at the time they tried to post.
We hope that you will find our application, cause and project compelling enough to consider the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Valley as a finalist.
How would improvements of your playspace impact your community?
The Boys & Girls Clubs of South Valley's Murray facility provides thousands of kids with high-quality after-school and summer programs. Without our Club, many kids would have to go home to an empty house after-school, which leaves them susceptible to crime, accidents and experimentation with drugs and alcohol.
We are a safety net for thousands of local youth and families with significant risk factors such as poverty, illiteracy and hunger. Our play space lifts people up and gives them the chance to have fun and be themselves without judgment. Our play ground is fenced which help promote safety and when the kids are outside playing, whether its a game or just having fun, we are nurturing their safety, health and happiness.
We are a safety net for thousands of local youth and families with significant risk factors such as poverty, illiteracy and hunger. Our play space lifts people up and gives them the chance to have fun and be themselves without judgment. Our play ground is fenced which help promote safety and when the kids are outside playing, whether its a game or just having fun, we are nurturing their safety, health and happiness.
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