Playground Installed at the Boys & Girls Club, Thanks to a Community of Generous Supporters!

After three years of waiting as a result of the pandemic, the Boys & Girls Club was finally able to build the beautiful playground it had planned since the opening of the new Adeline Wright Graham Boys & Girls Club!

The project became a reality after KaBOOM!, the organization that helps build outdoor play spaces for children, and an amazing local supporter, Teresa Kennedy, made significant investments to the Boys & Girls Club to fund this project. Teresa simply would not let this project wait any longer as she cares deeply about playground spaces for kids!

The project would not have been possible without Frank Emmer and his incredible team at BBL Construction. Frank helped us manage the construction components, brought in most of the heavy equipment, manage the timeline, unload the 70 ft. truckload full of equipment, and provided a crew to assist our volunteers and Playworld’s build experts with the assembly. There was also a very committed group of “handy” individual volunteers who were family, friends, board members, and colleagues who participated with helping the expert installers safely build the playground.

The final piece was bringing together a large group of volunteers to assist with the heavy items and do the job that everyone tries to avoid…dragging 100 yards of mulch onto the playground so it can be a safe landing spot when children jump (or fall) from the equipment. There were over 35 volunteers who dragged over 10” of the mulch spread across the playground on large tarps. It was an inspiring sight! Schenectady Connects provided 17 teenagers in addition to several members of our Board of Directors, staff and many more who worked hard on a very hot day. A huge thank you to Rob Pfister, owner of ProTurf Landscaping who donated not only his time but drove his skid steer that scooped all of the mulch and dumped it onto the tarps for the volunteers to drag onto the playground. We might still be shoveling mulch if not for this incredible gift from Rob!

The playground took two days to assemble and complete. We are thrilled to say that on August 1, the playground officially opened to the public for decades of use.

Thank you to everyone who made this possible for our community!