The Thrill of Climbing High, continued
W
ithin months of writing that
letter to KaBoom!, a team
of playground designers was
in the Shelter, asking our homeless
children what their dream playground
would look like. The kids got to pick
the colors, the components—slides,
swings, monkey bars. They got to
dream up something magnificent, and
weeks later, they got to see it built for
them, a brand new playground on the
campus of a homeless shelter, fu nded
by Pepsi and orchestrated by KaBoom!
On build day, 250 people came to help
us build our playground. It was July and
the hottest day of the year, with the temperature topping 100°, but that didn‘t
keep the community away. Seeing so
many people, all so different from each
other, unified in their work to build a
playground for our children was truly
inspirational. There were civic groups,
church groups, social workers, bankers,
business people, students, elected officials, and even a group from a home for
developmentally disabled adults. I have
a photograph from our build which I
cherish because it captures the heart of
what a KaBoom! Build is all about. It is
a photograph of one of our board members, an Arkansas Supreme Court Justice,
working alongside one of our residents, a
50-year-old homeless man who had never
learned to read: two people, so different
from each other, equal in their service,
equally committed to building something
wonderful for our homeless children.