SPARK Parks, Houston, Texas

I've posted before about the San Francisco's Open Playgrounds project, in which they leave school playgrounds unlocked on weekends.

The city of Houston's SPARK program is even better:

"The SPARK School Park Program was developed in 1983 as a way to increase park space in Houston, Texas. Former Houston School Board member and former City Council Member, Eleanor Tinsley, created SPARK to develop public school grounds into neighborhood parks. "

Schools apply to the city to become a SPARK site; the surrounding neighborhood must demonstrate a willingness to help plan and fund the SPARK Park with partnerships between the school and community groups such as churches, businesses and civic clubs.

The school itself raises $5000, and the school district provides $5000 as well as overseeing bidding & overseeing construction of the SPARK Park, as well as maintenance of the park after completion.

"Each school selected is given a goal of raising $5,000 for their park. Penny drives, bake sales, school carnivals, candy sales, spaghetti dinners, "buy a brick" drives, rummage sales and innumerable other events are staged to generate the funds. Classes volunteer to care for trees planted in the parks. Local businesses often help with in-kind contributions. Architects, landscape architects, artists and businesses are solicited for their professional contributions through the parents, spouses and teachers at the school. "

More than 85 of the 180 SPARK Parks have public art components. About half of the projects are proposed and completed by art teachers at the schools. When there is no art teacher, a local artists is recruited to work with the students and architect on a project. The artwork often reflects the heritage of the neighborhood, a specific theme, the school mascot, and/or the school motto.

An astonishing 180 schools in Houston have turned their grounds into public parks over the 25 years of the Spark program! Try getting your city council to adopt a resolution to build 180 parks. Great concept, effective use of taxpayer resources, and one that more communities should adopt.

New York has recently begun a similar program, called Schoolyards to Playgrounds, investing 95 million in funding for playground improvements to open 266 schoolyards as playgrounds in underserved neighborhoods.