Rejuvenating Neighborhoods and Communities Through Parks—A Guide To Success www.NRPA.org National Recreation and Park Association © 2011 All Rights Reserved 44 The Story of Stone Soup One of the stories that Steve Coleman and WPP use to describe the basis for their model of community revitalization through parks is the old folk story best known as “Stone Soup” The story of Stone Soup involves three wanderers without resources coming into a town going door to door trying to persuade local people to give them some food The requests for food were not successful so the men decided to return to the houses inviting the town residents to a celebration at the town center where the three wanderers would be serving stone soup When people asked about the ingredients for stone soup, the men told them water and stones, but then added a request from the residents for other small ingredient such as garlic, a carrot, and even a cooking pot Each invitee from the community came to the town center to place their small contribution to the stone soup into the cooking pot and miraculously there actually was a soup to be consumed; a soup that came to fruition from the small contributions of ingredients from various townspeople While the variations of the circumstances and situation of this story vary from telling to telling, the message that comes through clearly and consistently is that especially in situations of scarcity, the contributions and the cooperation of many individuals can result in something greater than the individuals or the circumstances The story of stone soup reflects the philosophy and methodology of Washington Parks & People—the individual contributions of people when brought together form the basis for community-wide success To listen to Steve Coleman tell the story of the Marvin Gaye Park progression and the techniques used by Washington Parks & People link onto http://ipv nrpa org/nrpa_docs/viewdocuments/viewer aspx?icode=CONG10_129 flv Lessons From Other Places, Projects, and Parks When park agencies share the challenges and opportunities of their projects, a wealth of insights and lessons results To illustrate this, here are profiles of five projects: Petersburg Park (Louisville, Kentucky), the New York City Parks and Playground Program, Lou Walker Park (DeKalb County, Georgia), Windsor Village Park (Indianapolis, Indiana), and Jaycee Park (Boynton Beach, Florida) || PETERSBURG PARKBEFORE
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTkzMzk=