Designed by Kids, Built by Volunteers

On Saturday, November 3, DASH, in partnership with KaBOOM! and with the support of the Washington Redskins Foundation, Wells Fargo, and Salesforce.com, created and built a state-of-the art playground for the children and families living in DASH’s Cornerstone Residence. 

Since opening in 2006, DASH has been the largest dedicated housing provider for victims of domestic and sexual violence in the city, helping thousands of families find safe housing in their programs and throughout the District.  The children currently living in DASH’s Cornerstone Residence did not have a safe playground to enjoy within walking distance.

This playground  is one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! has lead across the country in 2012 in an effort to fulfill its vision of a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.  KaBOOM! is a national non-profit organization dedicated to saving play.  Since 1996, KaBOOM! has used its innovative community-build model to bring together business and community interests to construct more than 2,100 new places to play across North America.  Our KaBOOM! playground build began early in the morning with volunteers arriving at an empty site.  Within hours, KaBOOM! led  volunteers in transforming the space to a vibrant place for children to play.  It was an old-fashioned barn-raising with an urban twist!

The playground build began with a kickoff ceremony at 8:30 a.m. and then the 250 volunteers gathered for the event went to work.  Throughout the day, there were teams shoveling mulch, mixing cement, painting murals, building benches, and assembling playground equipment, all with the goal of completing the playground by 2:30pm!  Former Redskins and their families worked alongside staff of Wells Fargo and Salesforce.com, as well as members of the DASH community to achieve this incredible goal. 

But it wasn’t ALL work.  With the help of the delicious food donated by DC Central Kitchen, Papa Johns, Matchbox, and Diane Cottman, as well as the dynamic music DJ’d by DJ M Dot, the crowd enjoyed a community block party as well, at one point stopping to demonstrate their amazing dancing skills!

The ribbon-cutting ceremony took place at 2:30 p.m. It was a celebration of everyone coming together to realize the vision of a safe and healthy place for the families living at DASH to live and play.  DASH and our residents couldn’t be more grateful for all of the incredible help and support to make this dream come true!