I took Tuesday and Thursday of this week off to volunteer (along with 299 of my closest friends) to build a playground in the Queensborough area of Shreveport. It was built on a lot next to a Friendship House set up by the Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal organization. The playground build was done by an organization called KaBooM!. The sponsors included Home Depot and the country and music stars Brooks and Dunn.

Shreveport native Kix Brooks and partner Ronnie Dunn are the top selling country duo in history, selling 30 million albums that have yielded an incredible 23 number 1 singles.

KaBooM! has a program in motion to build 1000 playgrounds in 1000 days. This playground was about number 868. To the public it looks as if the playground was built in a day (Thursday), but there was obviously a lot of prep work. As an example, Tuesday a smaller group of us showed up and unloaded four eighteen wheelers of material. We also dug about 50 holes (using a large posthole driller). Tuesday was also training day for 14 of us Build Captains.

So yesterday was the build day and over 250 volunteers showed up. My team built the climbing rock walls. Training was all of about 20 minutes for the group and then we got started. When Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn showed up we had to train them to do some assembly work for the photo ops and then get out of the way for a while. Actually in the thirty minutes they were working with my team they did a lot of useful work.

We had our portion built and in place in three hours. Working with a smaller group we went back and aligned and tightened all the parts and pieces. We then helped the other thirteen groups when possible.

All I can say is you should have seen the place in that last hour (from 1 to 2 PM). I have never seen to many rakes, hoes, wheelbarrows and shovels in one place. There were two eighteen wheeler truck loads of wood chips to move.

On the sad side of things this playground was built 3 blocks from where a 9 year old boy, Treveon Hunter, was killed in a drive by shooting last Friday night. Also 5 children were found in a house abandoned 5 blocks away with no heat, food, or anyone to care for them on the day of the build. This is just a couple of reasons for the effort to take place in hopes of making things like that go away.

I think the most common comment I got from most of the adults is that they could not believe that they started with an empty lot at 8 in the morning and by 2 in the afternoon they were watching a board cutting dedication ceremony in a completed playground. I would label this as a form of transformative learning. They now know that such things can be done and they have to give up that old concept that it can't be done.

For more information on Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal Click Here

For more information on KaBooM! Click Here

To see my Flickr photos of the event Click Here

To see other photos of the event Click Here

To see the Brooks & Dunn Web Site Click Here