Playbuild

As Playbuild entered the second year of the pandemic, our thalia street facility remained closed to youth and family participants out of an ongoing concern for health and safety. We did re-open our facility to adult volunteers to support programming related to placemaking and beautification of our central city neighbor hood. We installed and maintained a network of "little free library" boxes throughout the neighborhood to distribute books and creative play toys, and we launched the mlk clean team to visibly provide hands-on labor for weekend clean up events. On the policy front, Playbuild continued to engage city leaders and other leaders and other institutional and non-profit stakeholders through the child-friendly cities network. Goals articulated in the 2019 framework published in collaboration with the mayor's office of youth & families, arup, and tulane school of architecture were workshopped and ultimately intergrated into the citywide youth master plan. Playbuild received funding support from tulane university/the taylor center and forekids foundation to support these initiatives. Expenses related to site operations and maintenance(insurance, utilities, waste management, etc) as well as tactical engagement of freelance community members to manage seasonal site manintenance outreach and event support.