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Monday, May 16, 2016
The William Swanston Charitable Fund has awarded $75,000 to YNDC to encourage active living among children in Youngstown’s neighborhoods through YNDC’s Neighborhood Playground Enhancement Project
that seeks to achieve Policy, Systems, and Environmental change through the addition of outdoor fitness equipment at two highly-used neighborhood playgrounds, Glenwood and Homestead, and regimented fitness programs to the Summer Day Camp programs administered by the City of Youngstown’s Department of Parks and Recreation.
Playgrounds at Glenwood and Homestead Parks serve neighborhoods with the greatest number of youth living nearby. In 2013, YNDC led the construction of the Glenwood Community Park in a neighborhood where youth did not have access to recreational activities. The park now includes a playground, rock climbing station, basketball court, and outdoor pavilion. With this current proposal, YNDC seeks to enhance this playground and the playground at Homestead Park. Youth will be engaged in discussions about the importance of physical activity and will have the opportunity to give input on the type of fitness equipment they would like to have at their playground. Outdoor fitness equipment is modeled after resistance and other machines commonly found at gyms, but are designed to last in outdoor environments. The equipment is used to create an attractive and inviting, user-friendly, outdoor gym or fitness park that is appropriate for children.
In addition to environmental change through the addition of fitness equipment, the project seeks to change systems and policy in the Summer Day Camp program through regimented, daily use of the outdoor equipment. Mandated fitness activities during the Day Camp will increase the amount of physical activity among children, thus helping to reduce rates of childhood obesity among youth in the City of Youngstown. This project is a partnership with the City of Youngstown Department of Parks and Recreation.