Playgrounds are common ground // Intercultural Microgrant Guest Blog
The following guest blog is from 2024 Intercultural Microgrant (Civic Health) recipients Sarah Baird & Chris Murray. Learn more about this project at kyrux.org/microgrants/2024, and connect with the team at playgroundsare.co.
Below is the introduction and a few sample pages from the forthcoming Playgrounds are Common Ground ‘zine, which is currently being printed (in both English and Spanish!) and will be available in the library, coffee shop, or third space of your choosing in the very near future.
After seeing each and every one of the 100+ playgrounds included in the guide in person over the past few months — slides, monkey bars, swings, oh my! — we’ve become more convinced than ever that public playgrounds deserve a key spot in the conversation about how we continue to grow and shift intercultural connectivity in central Kentucky and beyond.
We hope you share our vision.
With free, accessible third spaces rapidly disappearing and loneliness rates at an all-time high—20 percent of Americans experience daily loneliness, according to a Fall 2024 Gallup poll—there is no better time to rethink just how important public playgrounds can be for families, caretakers, neighbors and beyond in central Kentucky.
Yes, public playgrounds.
Where you see swings, we see the building blocks for intercultural connectivity.
Where you see slides, we see vehicles for imaginative play.
Where you see a ropes course, we see a place for kids from all walks of life to work together overcoming challenges.
Where you see a bench, we see diverse caretakers sharing with one another and deepening community bonds.
Public playgrounds are powerful tools for civic connection, helping to build a strong foundation of understanding for both cities and regions, which is why we’ve launched the Playgrounds are Common Ground initiative, starting with this ‘zine.
Inside this (free!) ‘zine, you’ll find the locations of over 100 different public playgrounds in Fayette and surrounding counties — Bourbon, Clark, Jessamine, Madison, Scott, and Woodford — laid out in a creative, accessible, analog manner. You can touch it, feel it, hold it in your hands, and (most importantly) take it with you from playground-to-playground. No logging on required!
The impetus for this ‘zine, and the larger Playgrounds are Common Ground initiative, arose because we discovered, as parents, that there is no single resource in central Kentucky to easily figure out which parks have public playgrounds. Correspondingly, when we visited many of these public playgrounds, we found them to be (sadly) empty, with monkey bars and teeter-totters ready and waiting for kids, but no kids to be found. It was, well, a bummer. A big bummer.
This ‘zine is the first step toward filling up those lonely playgrounds through greater awareness and making them points of connection for central Kentucky kids, families and caretakers. We firmly believe in taking a regional approach to public playground advocacy—county lines are arbitrary, after all—so we’ve included the entire region in on the fun. Lexington and surrounding counties are not often thought of as interconnected places outside of commerce and commuting, but this project hopes to cross county lines, political lines, and any-line-you-can-think-of to bring awareness to the civic importance of these interactive third spaces. Just because you’re in Bourbon County, don’t count out Clark County’s public playgrounds, and just because Fayette County has the most public playgrounds, don’t glaze over Madison County’s offerings. There’s a perfect public playground (or five) for every kid, at every stage. Who knows who you’ll meet there!
This is the first step toward a larger Playgrounds as Common Ground initiative, including detailed public playground descriptions, first-hand reviews, community events, and young person-centered third space advocacy. We hope you’ll follow along via our website: http://playgroundsare.co.
For now, though, start your central Kentucky public playground journey with this ‘zine. The challenge? Try to visit 20 new playgrounds before the end of the year and let us know the community connections you build along the way.
Yours in play,
—Sarah Baird and Chris Murray
The Kentucky Intercultural Microgrant Program is a seed grant to support two or more individuals or organizations collaborating across distance, difference, or sector on projects that celebrate and connect Kentucky's people and places.
Launched with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Fund for the Arts, the Monument Workshop at UK, the Josh May Memorial Fund, and individual donors, the 2024 Microgrant Program invests in a series of seed grants (awards from $250-2000) to support short-term projects that foster dialogue, connection, or collaboration among Kentuckians from disparate backgrounds, identities, or experiences. Projects that involve diverse partners and invite the public to participate are preferred.