Geneva Named Playful City Three Years in a Row

On May 13, the City of Geneva was once again named as a Playful City by KaBOOM, and for the third time sets a standard as a national leader in the playability movement. Playability is defined as the extent to which a city makes it easy for kids to get balanced and active play – and are making play part of the solution that can move the needle on countless urban challenges. To date, the City of Geneva has over twenty places for children to actively play. “We feel this is a special honor for the City of Geneva and that we have proven to be a City that continually seeks to improve play-spaces for our children and families,” said Director of Recreation Janelle Drach. This year, the City of Geneva was only 1 of 3 cities in New York to receive this designation, and nationally only 212 were awarded. “Within the application we noted the City’s desire to create a new parks master plan, which we are currently working on in the Recreation Department, Department of Public Works and the Geneva Neighborhood Resource Center offices. Our park survey is still available for community members to complete and will be online at www.genevarec.com until the end of May,” noted Drach. The designation offers cities exclusive opportunities for grants. In 2012 and 2013 the City of Geneva was awarded grant funding totaling $30,000 to improve the play spaces. The first year, the City of Geneva applied after the working with the KaBOOM! organization on the Lakefront Community Playground. Since then, the City has worked hard to ensure that kids have a safe place to play actively and to maintain the Playful City status. “With the tremendous support of our friends at Humana Foundation, we are thrilled to recognize all of these communities that are working to ensure all kids, particularly the 16 million that live in poverty, get the play they need to thrive,” says KaBOOM! CEO and Founder Darell Hammond. KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to the bold goal of ensuring that all children, particularly the 16 million American children living in poverty, get the active play they need to become healthy and successful adults. KaBOOM! has been a powerful champion for play since its founding in 1996, working with partners to build, improve, and open more than 15,000 playgrounds, engage more than 1,000,000 volunteers and serve more than 6,600,00 children nationwide.