CCRA Receives Kaboom! Playground Grant

Central Community Redevelopment Agency and City of Bradenton received a Kaboom! Grant for playground equipment at Norma Lloyd Park. Children and parents participated in the Design Day on July 8, 2008 to decide what the playground would look like. Articles about Design Day from The Bradenton Herald and The Herald Tribune are below.

If you're interested in helping on the Build Day on August 21, 2008, please call the Central Community Redevelopment Agency at (941) 744-2362.

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Manatee children have say in Norma Lloyd Park playground design

By GRACE GAGLIANO
Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Alexis Henri, 14, wants three slides at Norma Lloyd Park's playground so she can race her friends.

Natalia Barron, 13, wants a tunnel at the playground for hide-n-seek.

Emoni Carley, 11, says a swing set is a must at any playground.

The wish list for Norma Lloyd Park went on and on Tuesday as about 60 children participated in a playground design day at the 13th Avenue Community Center.

The design process started with children drawing their dream playgrounds and ended with local officials and community leaders selecting some of the playground essentials based of the children's sketches.

The Manatee Mustangs cheerleader and her friends created a playground that included three slides, a rock-climbing wall, a merry-go round, monkey bars and spiral stairs.

Shatoya Davis, 17, said she wanted three slides to avoided long lines at the playground.
"So you don't have to wait for one person at a time," Shatoya said. "And for racing."

That's when Alexis chimed in that she's ready for a slide race.

"I would win," she said.

Alexis and her friend Ladaris Curry, 12, said designing the playground gave them a sense of ownership in the project.

"It's good to design something for us," Ladaris said.

The playground designs impressed city and county officials who are working with the Central Community Redevelopment Agency to bring the $10 million Norma Lloyd Park development project to life.

"These kids are very creative," said city councilwoman Marianne Barnebey. "It will be terrific to see what we can get with this."

Cheri Coryea, project manager for Norma Lloyd Park, said a public-private partnership will be key to its success.

The almost 25-acre park sits between Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and 13th Avenue East, just west of 25th Street East .

"It's a balance of timing and funding and progress," Coryea said.

The park will include recreation fields, a fitness trail, a splash park, an amphitheater, an expansion of Just for Girls and the relocation of the 13th Avenue Community Center.

Allison Hewitt, executive director of the Central Economic Development Center, was pleased to see so many children turn out for the community design day.

"This is much more than we thought," Hewitt said. "The whole drive behind Norma Lloyd Park, and what the city, county and CCRA are trying to achieve, is the community involvement."

Grace Gagliano, Bradenton city reporter, can be reached at 748-0411, ext. 2620.

Experience the sights and sounds of this story online.

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These architects draw with crayons
Imagine what you'd like in a playground. That's what these children did.

By KRIS TURNER
Published Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.

BRADENTON Children at the 13th Avenue Community Center used crayons and their imaginations to draft plans for their new playground Tuesday.The children became the architects of their dream play area by first selecting the right colored crayon or marker from boxes on folding tables. They worked under the supervision of Ann Gaudard, a project manager for the nonprofit playground-building group Kaboom.The community center will move from U.S. 41 and 13th Avenue West to Norma Lloyd Park at 13th Avenue East and 24th Street. Norma Lloyd Park will be revamped when the playground is built Aug. 21."You guys design the park, take ownership of it," Gaudard told the children.There were no limits to what the children could create.Christian McKay, 8, envisioned an amusement park. Water slides and rides that allow someone to soar through the air were her recommendation. "It would be awesome," she said, smiling.The current playground is cramped and sparse. A swing set, slide and small basketball court are a few of the only areas where children can play."That park doesn't have any shade," Christian said, noting that the new one will be better.The $50,000 project is funded by a grant from The Home Depot Foundation and the Central Community Redevelopment Agency, said Jeana Winterbottom, grants administrator for Bradenton. The new playground has been in the works since January, and it is satisfying to see it come together, she said."We've done a lot of conference calling and negotiating," Winterbottom said. "This is a wonderful experience. To see it actually happen, you see your community is affected."The drawings the group of about 60 children made will serve as the blueprint for what Kaboom will submit to a design firm, which will then create three possible plans for the playground. The design will be selected in the next few weeks.The project shows the youngest members of the community that they can have an impact at any age, city councilwoman Marianne Barnebey said."It tells them they are important to the community and they have valid ideas," she said."It's something concrete that they can believe in."A bigger playground with monkey bars, swings and a merry-go-round would be nice, Oznia Davis, 9, said.The old playground has swings and a slide, but Oznia does not find it too exciting."It'll probably be more fun," she said of the new playground.