Children Get Say in New Playground

Inspired by ideas of the children at the Long Beach Day Nursery, more than 200 volunteers will build them a playground today at the city’s oldest day care center.

Most of the volunteers constructing the dinosaur-themed playground will come from two national nonprofits: the American Assn. of Retired Persons and KaBOOM!, a Washington, D.C.-based group that, since 1995, has built 600 playgrounds in North America and improved 1,300 more.

The nonprofit nursery -- founded in 1912 by Florence Bixby of the family that helped settle modern Long Beach -- cares for 275 children of working families of all income levels at three centers.

The new playground will be constructed at the Memorial branch nursery, which is across the parking lot from Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and serves 82 children from infant to 6 years old.

The children at the Memorial nursery brainstormed and drew up their ideas March 2 for their dream playground, organizers said.

“A lot of the children were interested in dinosaurs as a theme and had some ideas about a swing,” nursery spokeswoman Gretchen Dixon said. “So they’ll be working in some [of the kids’] designs. “There will be a climbing wall and they are still considering whether to ‘bury’ a fossil for the kids to find.”

Sarah Pinsky of KaBOOM! said that the group seeks ideas for the design of playgrounds from the children who will play there. Unfettered by reality, some children dream up imaginative features.

“I think my favorite idea so far,” Pinsky said, “was an ‘M&M;’s pool.’ ” That called for a swimming pool filled, not with water, but M&M;’s. That idea didn’t make the final cut.

KaBOOM’s mission is to fund and join with community groups, such as the children’s center, to build playgrounds. AARP’s mission is to build safe play areas for children who lack them.

KaBOOM and Home Depot commissioned a Gallup Poll last year that found more than 50% of American children lack a playground within walking distance of their homes, said Pinsky, and KaBOOM is trying to remedy that.

But it is AARP that will provide much of the labor for the construction. AARP spokesman Mark Beach said the national membership organization, which represents the interests of people over age 50, has dedicated one day a year to community service since 2001. About 3,000 employees and volunteers from AARP offices around the country pitch in for the “Day of Service.”

Employees in the three California AARP offices -- in Lakewood, Pasadena and Sacramento -- will be working on the Long Beach playground, Beach said. “It’s an excellent community organization, and what they’re doing serves children and ... lots of our members are parents and grandparents,” Beach said.