New and Innovative Community-Designed Playground at Cool Spring Park
West Side Grows Together, Cool Spring Tilton Park Neighborhood Association, the Friends of Cool Spring Park, and the City of Wilmington Department of Parks and Recreation are excited to announce the opening of a new state of the art playground at Cool Spring Park. The playground is designed for folks of all ages and abilities and includes: a fitness area for adults, handicap accessible equipment, swings, slides, and an explorer dome. This remarkable project is the product of several years of collaboration between residents, local organizations, community leaders, city officials, and government representatives.
Through the Cool Spring Tilton Park Neighborhood Association (CSTNA), the Friends of Cool Spring Park (FOCSP), and West Side Grows Together, residents have been advocating for infrastructure improvements to the park for decades. The existing play equipment was dilapidated, outdated, and at times dangerous. In recent years, stormwater management issues compounded to render the park unusable after heavy rainfall, limiting physical activity for many of the neighborhood youth that included the William C. Lewis Dual Language Elementary School student’s outdoor recess.
In 2017, with support from DNREC and the City, West Side Grows Together was able to hire landscape architects to empower residents and develop a community-led playground design. In the summer of 2020 the green stormwater management portion was completed. After years of planning, in the fall of 2021, the project came to full completion.
The supporters of this innovative work took great strides to leverage funding in order to implement a high quality, destination park design that directly responds to the historical flooding problems that surround the playground and beyond.
Clara Zahradnik, a long-time community member who is the President of the West Side Grows Together Steering Committee shared her experience in watching the park transformation overtime, “The playground equipment is so much more attractive and engaging for children of different ages than the swings and slides that defined a playground when I was growing up. The new playground at Cool Spring Park is spectacular!” Clara went on to express her recognition of former City Councilman Bud Freel as instrumental in helping get the project started.
“This playground was only possible through the hard work of planning, engagement, fundraising, and accountability by Cornerstone West/West Side Grows and many members of our community,” said David Kim, the current FOCSP President. David elegantly described an ongoing need for this work, “One of many lessons of the pandemic is the importance of accessible outdoor spaces, and it gives us much joy to see our kids and neighbors at the playground, which started to draw a crowd almost immediately upon its opening. Now the work of stewardship begins, both for the community of Cool Spring and the City of Wilmington, who have received this amazing gift from our generous donors.”
The Cool Spring playground serves hundreds of students from William C. Lewis Dual Language Elementary School and families in the surrounding neighborhoods every day. The playground was made possible with the support of the City of Wilmington, New Castle County, the Delaware State Legislature, the Longwood Foundation, Welfare Foundation, Chemours, the Delaware Community Foundation, Red Clay Consolidated School District, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, and many individual donors.
The public may attend the grand opening event held at Cool Spring Park from on April 14th at 12 PM. Special guests will speak about the playground between 12:00 PM and 12:30 PM after which we invite youth and adults to test out the new equipment.
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West Side Grows Together is a coalition of residents, businesses, churches, and local leadership in the West Side of Wilmington, Delaware, working together to transform & strengthen their community. Follow West Side Grows Together on the Web, Facebook & Instagram for more information and program updates.