The Play it Safe with Kohl's program at Lurie Children's has experience in community playground building and advocating for safe playgrounds citywide. We work to prevent playground injuries through education, and to build and improve playground structures to create a safer environment for kids to play. To date, we have built or re-furbished 19 playgrounds at Head Start programs, public schools, public parks, and clinics.
In 2017, we built our 20th community built playground at Catholic Charities Chicago Lawn Head Start facility.
In 2005, we partnered with Friends of the Parks, a local park advocacy group, to survey all 450 of the Chicago Park District's playgrounds. Each summer from 2005 - 2012, we have re-visited the playgrounds to complete another safety evaluation. The Chicago Park District used our safety evaluation data, as one of the criteria for replacing playgrounds through their "Chicago Plays" initiative. In summer, 2015, we evaluated all the newly built "Chicago Plays" playgrounds in the city.
Take a look at this video to see some "before and after" photos of our playground projects.
