Columbia is Getting Serious About Play!

The City of Columbia--and its citizens--has joined the National Campaign for Play (organized by a national organization with the remarkably playful name of KaBOOM!). This movement has begun to combat such social ills as childhood obesity, attention deficit disorder and violence among our nation’s children. Early this year, members of City staff and Alderman Mary Ellen Niemietz determined that this campaign would provide an excellent framework for mobilizing what will eventually become a parks & recreation department.

This small group created an inventory of playspaces and worked with the Public Works Department to identify the financial resources dedicated to them. In April, they were successful in convincing the City Council to adopt Resolution 13-2008, endorsing the Playful City USA campaign and committing the City’s support to that effort; they also began assembling a list of likely candidates for the Play Commission, the community-based group that would be tasked with making this city-wide commitment to play make real accomplishments.

On May 19th, the Play Commission was officially created with adoption of Resolution 02-2009. The Play Commission will soon be hard at work finalizing its action plan, and this blog will chronicle its achievements. The community has also launched a Facebook group to help gather public input and encourage involvement.