Rejuvenating Neighborhoods and Communities Through Parks—A Guide To Success www.NRPA.org National Recreation and Park Association © 2011 All Rights Reserved 3 NRPA’s Vision: Parks Build Community Beginning in 2008, at the impetus of new CEO Barbara Tulipane, NRPA began to explore the idea of working on an urban park project that would exemplify the theme of how “Parks Build Community ” That “parks build community” is a concept intuitively understood by every professional in the field of parks and recreation From the smallest urban pocket park up through the largest urban parks, having a park enriches the life of every community However, there is often little empirical evidence to show just how a park tangibly contributes to the building of community NRPA saw how valuable it would be to complete such a project in a community that had none, and to use the example to demonstrate why parks are so important to every community’s sense of itself For a number of reasons, NRPA chose to look for a park-build project in or close to the District of Columbia And it was not difficult to find any number of communities and neighborhoods in need—communities that had no parks or playgrounds, or if they had them, they were in dire need of repair and rehabilitation Partnering with the DC Department of Parks and Recreation and the non-profit group Washington Parks and People, an established park advocacy group that had completed a highly successful park renovation with the National Park Service at Meridian Hill Park in NW D C , NRPA identified a park rehabilitation project in an underserved community that would be an ideal candidate for proving the hypothesis that parks do build community—Marvin Gaye Park in Northeast D C The need for a park and playground in this underserved community could not have been more apparent Ward 7 has the second highest concentration of children of any Ward in the city, and there had been no public playground here for the past 25 years In fact, local civic leaders had asked the city to remove old and dilapidated playground equipment because they did not want children to be attracted to it since it was now a known open-air drug market Under the Administration of Mayor Adrian Fenty, the city had committed to an ambitious redevelopment of the former Watts Branch Stream Valley Park, but did not have the funds to complete the planned redevelopment of the entire park Working with the office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and Washington Parks and People, NRPA proposed to take responsibility for securing the equipment and materials for a new playground, which would be the heart of the park redevelopment project Over the next two years, NRPA sought and received an outstanding level of donations—over a quarter million dollars in value—from suppliers, manufacturers, and businesses, to support this park rebuild The project efforts and results was widely featured in local and national media, including documentation in Parks and Recreation Magazine in September, 2010. In addition to the park-rebuilding project, NRPA also committed to a research project in cooperation with George Mason University to show how people’s perceptions of their health and wellness were improved by using the park, and how park visitation increased one there was a safe place to play for children and youth However, the larger purpose of the Marvin Gaye Park project was more than play equipment, pavers, and landscaping The Parks Build Community initiative demonstrates how parks connect to and enhance the life of a community It is as much about what takes place in the community outside the park as it is about what takes place inside the park Marvin Gaye Park resulted in a community that now had a safe place for children to play and residents to socialize The spillover effect of Marvin Gaye Park has led to the closure of a drug rehabilitation clinic adjacent to the park formerly referred to as “needle park” and the infusion of community development investment from the City for the neighborhood || VOLUNTEERS INVOLVED IN CLEAN UP EFFORT
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