You must enable cookies for this web site to function properly.

Take Action

Sign Now: Make Schoolyards Safe for Kids!

Kids should not have to play in vacant lots. With school back in session for most students, we are working in full swing to create or finish Community Schoolyards™ projects across the country—turning concrete schoolyards into vibrant parks for kids and nearby communities.

Urge your members of Congress to support the transformation of our nation’s concrete schoolyards into vibrant parks today!

By taking action, you will receive important updates about our work and how you can help Trust for Public Land protect public land and parks for people.

Read the letter

*Required fields
 
 

Your personalized message will be added to this letter.

RE: Turn asphalt schoolyards into vibrant parks

To [Decision Maker], 

With school back in session, I'm writing to urge you to lead the call in Congress to fund Community Schoolyards projects today.

Your support will help turn our nation's concrete schoolyards into vibrant parks for kids and nearby communities. Transforming these desolate spaces into community parks will bring significant health and educational benefits not just to students, but also to the communities they serve - helping close the park equity gap we see in the U.S. today.

Equitable access to the outdoors is essential for healthy, happy people and communities. But not everyone in America has access to a quality park. In fact,
- 100 million people in America - including 28 million kids - don't have a park close to home;
- in our biggest cities, communities of color have access to 44 percent less park space than majority white communities;
- communities with less park space are hotter in summer, have worse air quality, and are more susceptible to catastrophic flooding; and
- people without parks close to home get less exercise. Lack of access to parks is associated with higher rates of heart disease, stroke, and obesity.

Thankfully, there's a common-sense, cost-effective solution in almost every community: the local schoolyard. If every public schoolyard in America functioned as a shared outdoor space, 20 million more people - kids and adults - would have access to a park within a 10-minute walk of home.

For these reasons, I strongly urge you to support Community Schoolyards projects. Together, we can close our nation's park equity gap - one schoolyard transformation at a time.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Email]