Salem Honored With Playful City USA Designation

Salem has many volunteer groups who participate in maintaining parks, building playgrounds, and helping to ensure our parks are safe.

The City of Salem has been honored with a 2014 Playful City USA designation for the first time. Teens cool off in the warm weather by jumping their bikes into the Willamette River. Photo: Kevin Hays Salem-News.com

(SALEM, Ore. ) - The City of Salem has been honored with a 2014 Playful City USA designation for the first time.

Salem has established programs centered on improving park playgrounds by offering matching grants to neighborhood associations wishing to make park improvements at local parks.

The city also partners with the Salem Parks Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to promote, develop, facilitate, and sustain stewardship dedicated to the enhancement of parks if the city of Salem.

Additionally, the city has many volunteer groups who participate in maintaining parks, building playgrounds, and helping to ensure our parks are safe. All of these combined efforts along with the support of the Salem Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, has resulted in the Playful City USA designation.

“The City of Salem will strive to provide a balance of active play, especially outdoor play in our city parks. We acknowledge that play provides an unlimited opportunity for growth, learning, and healthy lives. I’d like to affirm our commitment, at City of Salem, to provide every child in our community a healthy, safe, and playful childhood.” Mayor Anna Peterson said.

To advance the national dialogue on playability, KaBOOM! and City of Salem invites interest, expertise, and voices from members of the Salem community to get involved (and get playful!) in thinking about how play can create more family-friendly cities.

Join the Twitter conversation and encourage action: Participate on Twitter (@kaboom) and provide your point of view and forward-looking insights on playability in cities using the hash-tags #playability and #playmatters.

“With the tremendous support of our friends at Humana Foundation, we are thrilled to recognize all of these communities that are working to ensure all kids, particularly the 16 million that live in poverty, get the play they need to thrive,” says KaBOOM! CEO and Founder Darell Hammond.

Humana President and CEO Bruce Broussard added, “We’re excited about our journey with KaBOOM! and we appreciate the shared values that Humana, the Humana Foundation, and the KaBOOM! organization can rally around. Making it easy for families to play, be healthy and thrive together is a part of Humana’s dream, and it’s a commitment that all of us at Humana enjoy sharing with KaBOOM!.”

KaBOOM!, in partnership with the Humana Foundation, announced 212 cities and towns across the United States as 2014 Playful City USA honorees. These communities are leaders in playability – the extent to which a city makes it easy for kids to get balanced and active play – and are making play part of the solution that can move the needle on countless urban challenges.

The KaBOOM! Playful City USA program, sponsored by the Humana Foundation, honors cities, towns, and communities across America that are taking bold steps to ensure all children, especially the 16 million American kids living in poverty, have easy access to balanced and active play in their communities. Cities being recognized span every region of the country, and include Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Nashville; Austin; Providence; San Francisco; New York City; and 205 others.

Source: City of Salem