Local children assist with playground plan
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on October 7, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Caroline Saylors, left, draws what she would like to see include in the new KaBoom! playground at Herman Park. She was among the more than 40 children who helped design what they would like to see in the park.
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Teresa Crippen, project manager for the KaBoom! playground project at Herman Park, leads a walk-through of the project area during a Tuesday afternoon session that also included children drawing up their own plans for the playground.
They wanted curly slides, ziplines, monkey bars, trampolines and life-sized checkers -- some even wanted "a whole fair."
More than 40 children from local schools and community centers gathered at the Herman Park Center Tuesday afternoon to design a KaBoom! playground, and were given only one rule to follow -- dream big, and let your imagination run wild.
The resulting designs, drawn by children from ages 6 to 12, envisioned a park that would have zero-gravity chambers, a mini-golf course, giant games of tic-tac-toe, swimming pools, bungee jumping and even flying pirate ships.
There also were more common requests for equipment the children wanted in the KaBoom! playground that will be built on Nov. 14 in Herman Park.
Cash Whitley, 8, envisioned a playground with rope climbing areas, tunnels and trampolines.
Alec Buskey, 9, came up with an idea for a football return system that would allow someone to throw a football into the gadget and have it automatically returned to them. To his knowledge, nothing else like it exists in the world.
Nehemiah Tyler, 10, wanted a giant tic-tac-toe game and life-sized checkers and chess in his park design.
Combining imagination, feasibility and the reality of what is actually possible was left up to several community leaders who met after the children finished their brainstorming sessions.
Teresa Crippen, the KaBoom! project manager; John Albert, the city's parks superintendent; Gary Bartlett of Wayne First; Kristy Kent of Blue Cross Blue Shield; and Sissy Lee-Elmore and Georgia Dees of Wayne Memorial Hospital performed a site walk of Herman Park on Tuesday to outline the area in which the playground will be built.
These six community members have been responsible for bringing the idea for a KaBoom! playground to life in Goldsboro.
They formed an "amoeba of a shape" for the playground, outlining rough dimensions and figuring out what can stay and what will be removed at the existing park.
Several trees will be removed, Albert said, as well as some of the existing playground structures and swings that currently sit on the site.
The Kiwanis Train will stay, though.
Approximately half of the existing playground area will be cleared out to make way for the KaBoom! structure, which will be built from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 14, taking a total of six hours to bring a new playground to the city.
More than 200 volunteers are expected to take part in the construction of the park in November, with 100 volunteers being provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield, 40 volunteers coming from Wayne Memorial Hospital and another 100 volunteers being provided by the city and Wayne First.
There will be two "prep days" on Nov. 12 and 13, during which 40 volunteers from several organizations will organize and ready the materials that will be used to build the playground.
City crews will dismantle and dispose of the playground equipment slated to be removed, and all materials that need to be prepared using power tools will take up the bulk of the work on the first prep day.
"The equipment comes a bit like IKEA furniture," Ms. Crippen said. "Preparing it is also like making a cake. You have to do certain things in a certain order to make it work."
All equipment and materials being kept on the site for the duration of the project will be stored in a locked mobile storage unit.
The community leaders responsible for bringing the project to fruition came up with three possible designs for the KaBoom! playground after the children's brainstorming meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The potential color scheme for the park is yellow, purple and orange, although that is subject to change. The three potential designs for the playground have not yet been released.