Kiwanis Centennial Playground Ready for Play

Thanks to the Kiwanis Club of Roanoke there is a new playground for the community to enjoy.

In honor of their 100th anniversary, the Kiwanis Club built a 10,000 square foot playground that includes adaptive equipment so all can play, regardless of physical ability.

The Kiwanis Centennial Playground is an inclusive outdoor space where children and their families can be active together and where the neighborhood can gather in a healthy, safe manner.

Here’s more about the project from Cheri W. Hartman, PhD Immediate Past President, Kiwanis Club of Roanoke:

The Kiwanis Centennial Playground was gifted to the City of Roanoke officially on August 30, 2020. Amid the pandemic, the Kiwanis Club of Roanoke raised $400,000 needed to build in the 2600 block of Melrose Avenue.

Grants, generous individual and corporate donors, fundraisers like the club’s signature annual Kiwanis Pancake and Auction Day, and neighborhood-based awareness events represented a community coming together to support a neighborhood in need. Adjacent to the Goodwill Industries campus and the Melrose Branch of the Roanoke City Public Library, this play space and center for neighborhood gathering materialized after years of planning that included input and support from the Roanoke Public libraries, Goodwill Industries of the Valleys, the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Melrose-Orange Target Area participants, Roanoke City’s Parks and Recreation Department, the City Manager, Roanoke City Councilmembers, generous area churches, local businesses, and many from the immediate neighborhood. Even the day of mulching the playground for softer landings included local families, the Roanoke City Police Academy, playground pals (area businesses and organizations) totaling 65 volunteers who together spread the tons of mulch across the whole surface of the playground.

The goal of the Kiwanis Centennial Playground was to create an inclusive outdoor space where children and their families could be active together and where the neighborhood could gather in a healthy safe manner.

Recent research and community needs assessments have highlighted the elevated levels of childhood obesity in our community and the need for safe outdoor places where children could engage in healthy active play. The benefits of outdoor play have been proven on cognitive, socioemotional, and physical development.

ADA compliant ramps and an especially engineered wood-fiber mulch were purchased allowing for wheelchair accessibility. Adaptive equipment was incorporated that helps override sensory and mobility impairments, as well as an educational element teaching braille so that individuals of all abilities could play together. There is a harnessed swing, a Merry Go All, and a sensory panel activated by plugging in one’s wheelchair USB cord. A workout area was built so that youth and adults could have their own equipment for strength-building. Benches and shade invite the adults to join the fun and supervise the safety of the activity.

The Kiwanis Club of Roanoke and its 144 members donated generously; however, most impressive was the breadth of support throughout the Roanoke Valley. The playground has already been a focal point of neighborhood activity, ranging from the library’s Melrose Fall Festival to the current Adopt-a-Playground Project, that links the Kiwanis Club of Roanoke in an ongoing manner with the Roanoke Parks and Recreation Department, Goodwill, the library, and neighborhood businesses, places of worship, and organizations. There is a monthly rotation of business/organizational partners who are sponsoring activities at the playground and clean-up events from January through December.