October 2021 - Parks & Recreation - 48

10 -MINUTE WALK
Some communities, like Camden,
New Jersey, had a high percentage of
community members living within a
10-minute walk of a park, but many of
those spaces were not high quality.
complete with a climbing wall,
zipline, gym, music recording studio,
kitchen, café, classrooms and
a 318,000-gallon swimming pool
- a reflection of the vision of the
community.
In hearing this story (tinyurl.
com/36a87397), one is inspired
yet disheartened. It should
not have taken the loss of an
innocent, young life to galvanize
the resources for a community
gathering space, but it did.
Shirley's story - Hayes' story -
is powerful and was made possible
by a visionary son and a passionate
and determined mother, but the
story of disinvestment in lowincome
communities of color; the
story of senseless gun violence;
the story of a lack of access to safe,
culturally-relevant, welcoming
park and recreation spaces is not
unique to Tacoma. These stories
can be told of communities across
the United States.
48 Parks & Recreation | O CTOBER 2 0 2 1
A New Phase in the
Parks Movement
Over the past 150 years, parks and
recreation has responded to the
needs of communities (tinyurl.
com/3zdeej9y) - from the Olmsted
parks, built to combat pollution
and disease in cities, to parks functioning
as service centers for immigrants,
to the many roles of parks
and recreation centers today. Park
and recreation
professionals provide
meal sites during the summer
and after school. They offer places
for older adult and youth physical
activity programs. They provide
spaces for learning, connection to
nature and environmental resilience;
spaces for healing and memorials;
spaces for joy and celebration.
Parks and recreation is essential
to the fabric of every community.
Lacking access to parks and recreation
is an injustice. To achieve just
and fair park access for all people,
agencies must acknowledge, harness
and celebrate the unique power and
resilience that dwell within communities
while working to remove the
barriers that perpetuate the inequities
that exist between them.
| PARK S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G
In July 2021, NRPA announced
the selection of a new cohort of
grantees for the Resilient Park
Access grant, taking the work of the
10 Minute Walk to the next level.
These six communities are receiving
more than $2.5 million total to
take a community-driven, equityfocused,
systems-level approach
to addressing systemic racism
and inequities in park access,
environmental resilience and
community health. Grantees are
using a myriad of strategies, such as
promoting community engagement,
supporting workforce development,
creating culturally relevant spaces
for healing, and enshrining
community power in plans and
policies, to shift power structures in
their systems and institutions from
a traditional top-down approach
to a grassroots, community-driven
approach. " We are thrilled to be
working in partnership with these
park and recreation professional
leaders to advance communitycentered
local solutions, " says
Rachel Banner,
director of park
access at NRPA. " While this work
will take intentionality and time, we
are excited to be able to lift up their
journey along the way so that park
and recreation
professionals
can
work together to create stronger,
healthier and more resilient
communities through parks. "
This moment in our history requires
us to live up to the highest
ideals of our profession in creating
a multiracial, multicultural
democratic society that supports
community power in creating equitable
park access and quality for
all. Communities across the United
States are picking up this gauntlet.
How are you and your agency answering
the call?
Jared Mummert is Park Access Program
Manager at NRPA (jmummert@nrpa.org).
PHOTO COURTESY OF CAMDEN COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP, INC.
https://www.tinyurl.com/3zdeej9y https://www.tinyurl.com/3zdeej9y https://www.tinyurl.com/36a87397 https://www.tinyurl.com/36a87397
October 2021 - Parks & Recreation

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