News Blog

One of our 2018 Community Micro Grant Recipients is: Playscapes-  Evolve Early Learning (formerly Body Mind Adventure)

Project lead Corrie Price describes the project:

This grant is the seed fund for our nature-based playscapes. Due to a change in our target market after a needs assessment, we discovered that we could do more by serving younger children. By serving 2-7-year-olds we will be able to “get it right the first time”.

The $1,000 is creating our Mud Kitchen and workshop, dry creek bed, outdoor stage/classroom. Each is a work of art and an interactive playscape. Due to this grant, we have been able to raise over 600 more hours of volunteer work, donations by landscape designers, builders, and installation artists. We have been waiting for Spring to build and our first kids will play THIS SUMMER!

The entire playground is natural. No metal and plastic climbers. The children have helped design it. We are also going to open out playground to the neighborhood several weekends a month.

Please watch our videos to see what we have been up to:  

So far we have had 6 core people working on the playground project including sourcing logs and stumps, plants, design, and safety planning. We have 10 more people who are interested in building our playground in May. At our open house recently we shared our vision with over 200 people who help us raise the additional $ we need to complete phase 1 of the project.

Due to the unfoldment of weather, timing, and the unexpected rehab on our building we had to change our timing and focus indoors over the summer. The communal effort for this project has give us over 600 hours of donated work and many many discounts and material donations. We are thankful for the flexibility with this grant. So much has changed and our timeline has changed but having this grant has allowed us to leverage so much! This grant covered about 20% of our total costs of the whole property rehab project.

One of the best parts was that the playscape project morphed into the indoor Ecological Mural Project where 6 local artists “Decked Our Halls” in December. The outcome was awe inspiring. We hear, “I wish my preschool was like this!” a lot! (Top>Bottom mural images: Maria Seth Musngi, Marcos Martinez, & Joshua Spiceland all burners)

Once open, our center will serve as a 2nd home and resource center for young families. To learn more about the project visit our website.

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