Marisa Herrera (left), Randi Villarreal and Analisa Cortinez, all city of Corpus Christi Latch Key employees, help build a deck bench for the new playground at Dilworth Park on Nov 5. Photo by Carrie Robertson Meyer/Third Coast Photo
The Westside of Corpus Christi has a new playground, built compliments of the more than 200 volunteers who showed up Nov. 5 to do the work. Organizers from KaBoom!, a national nonprofit that works to give children in low-income homes a place to play, built the playground in Dilworth Park based on designs submitted in September by local children.
While KaBoom! organized the project and volunteers built it, it was also helped along in partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, the Corpus Christi Parks and Recreation Department and Beautify Corpus Christi.
The park, 3000 Elgin St. in Corpus Christi, was constructed over a three-day period with prep work done Nov. 3-4. The actual build began at 8 a.m. Nov. 5 and continued until a ribbon-cutting ceremony on completion at about 3 p.m.
An older park, Dilworth didn’t have much to offer kids in the local area. Now, after about $300,000 in materials and the sweat equity of community volunteers, the park is home to new swing sets, slides, seesaws and climbing equipment.
“The well-being of society begins with the well-being of children,” reads the vision statement of Kaboom.org. “All kids deserve a childhood filled with the balanced and active play needed to thrive.”
Founded in 1996, the organization has built or improved 16,300 playgrounds with the help of more than a million volunteers. The 1,200 children expected to use Dilworth’s new playground will be added to the 8.1 million served by KaBoom! so far. KaBoom! has offices in Washington, D.C., and San Bruno, California.
