Brockton Day Nursery Infant, Toddler, Preschool, and After School Playground Improvements

Website

http://www.brocktondaynursery.org

So you’re going to improve your local playground. What’s your great idea?

Brockton Day Nursery is an inner city child care and education center serving over 240 children from ages 6 weeks to 13 years. We are interested in improving our playground by adding additional equipment for social and motor development for all ages. We currently have five playgrounds on site. One for our after school program. Two for our preschool program and two for our infant toddler program. For lack of funding, one of our preschool playgrounds are completely empty and needs many things addred to it. Some of the things are we hoping to add are: Outdoor water water tables and a outdoor playhouse along with 10 tricycles and a plant area for preschoolers and enhance our infant/toddler play area by adding an outdoor play station.

Which local nonprofit, school, or park district will you work with, and how will you work with them to choose a playground for the project?

Brockton Day Nursery is a non-profit school who serves an inner city demographic. 99% of our families live below the poverty level. Our program is all inclusive, we provide all meals, diapers, wipes and formula along with mental health and behavioral health services. Our program has two social workers on site and we partner with several nonprofit agencies in the area to provide additional services such as South Bay Mental Health, Community Care Service and Early Intervention.

How will you involve local volunteers in the playground project?

We will invite our local United Way to be a part of the playground set up for their annual day of caring. We will partner with a local senior citizen group to work directly with our children on the planting of plants in the empty playground space.

Tell us about the kids that will be using the playground.

The children who will be using the preschool and infant/toddler playgrounds come from many diverse nationalities and ethnicities. A very large percentage come from single parent, low income homes. Another large percentage of the children have some involvement with the Department of Families and Children and are either reuniting with their parents or are currently in foster care. Brockton Day Nursery is like a second family for most of our children. Our center is open from 6:30 AM to 6PM.

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