Publication Date: 01/06/2011

Partnering with Kids Around the World to Serve the Children in Haiti 

The Wheaton Park District has partnered with Kids Around the World to send the playground equipment, originally located at Northside Park, to Haiti. The playground was divided into 4 different units that will be installed at 4 different churches in Port Au Prince Haiti. Starting in January, Kids Around the World will be sending teams of volunteers to Haiti to install the playgrounds.

Kids Around the World was founded in 1994 with the goal to provide safe play equipment for children that found themselves in situations where it was difficult to just be a “kid”. So often children find themselves as victims of situations out of their control, they become victims of economic stress, victims of political injustice, victims of natural disasters, and worst of all, victims of war. It was for these children that Kids Around the World began. Kids Around the World partners with many organizations and foundations to install the playgrounds in these devastated countries around the world. “Things are very rough in Haiti and we are still waiting on an exact time we can get in. As of right now, we cannot fly into Port Au Prince because of all the unrest,” stated Tim Clauson, Playground Director for Kids Around the World.

The mission statement of the Wheaton Park District is to enrich the quality of community life through a diversity of healthy leisure pursuits and heightened appreciation for our natural world. Mike Benard, Executive Director of the Wheaton Park District acknowledged, “The Wheaton Park District is proud to donate this playground equipment to the children of Haiti. If we can make the lives of these children, who have been so devastated by these earthquakes a little brighter, then we have enriched the quality of life in a remote part of our world.”

For more information, please contact Margie Wilhelmi at 630-510-4984 or at [email protected].