(Rendering: ABLE Studio | Courtesy of Trust for Public Land)
Trust for Public Land recently launched the Oregon Rural Community Schoolyards program, an expanded pilot program, transforming three outdated schoolyards into vibrant green spaces that are open to everyone outside of school hours.
Through TPL’s participatory design process, the organization is working with schools in two phases to ensure extensive and inclusive community engagement in creating a vision for each new community schoolyard. Over the past year, more than 700 students and community members have come together to help create exciting and culturally relevant designs.
“Rural communities are experiencing the largest health, environmental, and socioeconomic Inequities in the state and TPL’s schoolyards program has the opportunity to address these critical issues,” said Amanda Craig Oregon project manager for Trust for Public Land. “Our community-driven approach ensures the outdoor space will improve student education outcomes as well as community health and climate resiliency.”
Madras is home to 7,000 residents in the high desert of Central Oregon. Madras is the ancestral homeland of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, and Madras Elementary School serves members of the Tribes, and a growing Latino population.
The schoolyard is centrally located in the community, and 70% of Madras residents live within a 10-minute walk of the schoolyard. Today, the schoolyard’s play equipment is old, and expanses of unshaded asphalt reach high temperatures in the heat.
The community-led design for the new schoolyard includes accessible play equipment, community gathering spaces, drought-tolerant plants to reduce heat impacts, and interactive elements like musical instruments.
TPL has secured a $500,000 federal grant from the Environmental Protection Agency but is currently seeking additional support from private funders as well as through the Oregon state legislature during this current session to complete the project. With final community-generated design concepts approved by the school and district, once we’ve secured funding construction is proposed to begin in the summer of 2024.
With help from our partners and supporters, TPL has created nearly 300 Community Schoolyards projects and continue to lead the movement to transform our nation’s asphalt playgrounds into vibrant green spaces that are improving student education outcomes and community health and climate resiliency. If all schoolyards were transformed and opened to the community after hours, 80 million people would have access to a new park within a 10-minute walk of home.
About Trust for Public Land:
Trust for Public Land (TPL) is a national nonprofit that works to connect everyone to the benefits and joys of the outdoors. As a leader in equitable access to the outdoors, TPL works with communities to create parks and protect public land where they are needed most. Since 1972, TPL has protected more than 4 million acres of public land, created more than 5,364 parks, trails, schoolyards, and iconic outdoor places, raised $93 billion in public funding for parks and public lands, and connected nearly 9.4 million people to the outdoors.
