And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

–Barack Obama “A More Perfect Union” 3/18/08

This is not a post about the speech by the junior senator from Illinois - brilliant though it was - because by now everyone and their mother has written about said speech ad nauseam and there’s nothing original left to say on the subject. Look at the above quote though. What is the first basic service Senator Obama says is missing from urban neighborhoods and contributing to violence and neglect? It’s not police or trash pickup, or even HUD funding; it’s parks for children. Luckily for those urban kids, for Mr. Obama, and for all of us, there’s a nonprofit out there working hard to solve this problem. The organization is called KaBOOM!, and they’re bringing the ability to play to inner-city children one playground at a time.

Call me naive, call me ignorant, but I grew up in suburbs, and for the first 23 years of my life I never thought twice about the fact that the elementary school I attended in Atlanta (and the two my brothers attended in Connecticut) had playgrounds. They were simply always there - taxpayer-funded I’d imagine - and if something is always there one tends to take it for granted until one learns better. I learned better when I recently volunteered at a KaBOOM! build in New Orleans.

KaBOOM! was founded in 1995 by a man named Darell Hammond (not the SNL actor) when he read a story about two children from southeast DC who suffocated in an abandoned car because they had nowhere else to play. Hammond decided that he was going to do something about the problem and hasn’t looked back. KaBOOM! is now a $23 million a year organization that in its 12 years of existence has built over 1,300 playgrounds, skate parks, sports fields, and ice rinks in all 50 states, Mexico, and Canada.

Lack of places for children to play is a serious issue around the nation, and playing and physical activity is on the decline. According to a UNICEF report in the press release I received, “British and American youth are the unhappiest children in the developed world, most likely due to the decline over the last 15 years in outdoor, unstructured play.” Playtime both during and after the school day teaches children important lessons in socialization, in addition to acting as a deterrent for health problems such as childhood obesity and diabetes. But urban schools often lack funding for playgrounds, and many do without.

The problem is particularly serious in the Gulf Coast, whose schools never had much money anyway, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita complicated matters further. To help remedy this problem, KaBOOM! launched Operation Playground, an initiative to build 100 playgrounds in and around the Gulf Coast. The first of the Operation Playground builds was completed on December 17, 2005 in Bay St. Louis, MS. KaBOOM! has stuck to its word, and the 89th and most recent playground was completed on March 20, 2008 in Mobile, AL. For those who are interested and will be in the area, there will be builds at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Ocean Springs in Ocean Springs, MS on 4/19/08, at Cherokee Elementary in Pascagoula, MS on 4/25/08, at Saucier Elementary in Saucier, MS on 4/26/08, and at Fannie Williams Elementary in New Orleans on 5/17/08.

I participated in the 84th of the Operation Playground builds that occurred at Live Oak Elementary in New Orleans, and it was an amazing experience. By now KaBOOM! has the art of playground building down to a science, but I do admit that I was skeptical when I was told that the torn up blacktop I saw in front of me at 9:00 am would be a beautiful brand new playground by the time I left at 5:00. There were many volunteers and many jobs to be done, but by the time we broke for lunch, real progress had been made. Sure enough, by 5:00 the playground was completed.

In terms of sheer bang for your volunteer buck, it’s hard to imagine something that has the potential to directly affect more people than volunteering at a KaBOOM! build. Giving blood helps one or two people and so does mentoring at, say, a Boys and Girls Club. Habitat for Humanity helps any family that lives in the house. These are great charities, and by no means am I suggested that they’re not worthwhile. But volunteering at just one KaBOOM! playground can affect literally thousands of children during the lifetime of that playground. KaBOOM! estimates that its efforts affect 114,000 children every year. Let that number sink in for a minute.

So, if you have a free afternoon and want to do something really good for your community, consider volunteering to build a playground. You can see whether there’s anything in your area here. Believe me when I tell you, the only thing more impressive than seeing a playground arise from the rubble in one afternoon, is knowing that you were a part of it.