Author: Dilia Ramirez

Lieutenant Gov: More emphasis on worker training

March 10, 2011

Lieutenant Gov: More emphasis on worker training

By Mary E. Arata, marata@nashobapub.com
DEVENS — Even as the state’s unemployment rate hovers at about 9 percent, Lt. Gov. Tim Murray said Wednesday that work-force needs and concerns “may not be what the media and others may lead us to believe.”
Employers need trained employees, and it’s challenging to retain them in the face of higher costs of living and wintry weather, Murray told a crowd of more than 350 people at the eighth annual Commonwealth Workforce Coalition Conference, held at the Devens Common Center.
The event, subtitled “Sharing Skills, Building Connections,” also included a series of workshops on career-related topics, including networking, career coaching and social media.
Murray said the conference dovetailed nicely with the Patrick administration’s November 2007 launch of its Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness, which has a goal of ending homelessness in the commonwealth by 2013.
“If we’re going to better serve our clients, we need to make them fully aware of opportunities to partner,” Murray said.
Murray said recent statistics that indicate a slow economic recovery is “little solace to those who are not working or underemployed.”
He praised the CWC for sparking ideas to fine-tune the Bay State work force because “now, more than ever, it’s imperative to provide the right assistance and training.”
Part of Wednesday’s conference was to track employment trends, Murray said, “not only in the next year, but five to 10 years down the road, and what collectively are we doing to prepare people?”
He said work-force development is receiving a renewed focus in the administration’s second term.
“What has always allowed us to stay ahead and competitive is that we’ve always had a well-educated work force,” Murray said.
The lieutenant governor said requests for proposals are now being accepted from community colleges and other venues, for example, to house adult learning and career centers to help affected workers “sharpen their skills and become attractive job candidates in this very competitive market.”
The administration also endorses arming workers with an arsenal of STEM skills — science, technology, engineering and math. Murray said a STEM-centric curriculum will help in job creation in the fields of education, medicine, biotech and life sciences, manufacturing, video gaming and robotics, to name a few.
“We need to try to make sure that we’re thinking and preparing for those growth industries, from the entry level to those that require significant and advanced degrees,” Murray said.

© 2011 MediaNews Group, Inc. and Mid-States Newspapers, Inc

HTML: http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/local/ci_17580670#ixzz1GD1qPzrk

SourceSentinel & Enterprise

Workforce Coalition Conference

Workforce Coalition Conference

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

DEVENS — The Commonwealth Workforce Coalition will hold its 2011 annual conference: “Sharing Skills – Building Connections,” from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. tomorrow at Devens Common Center, 31 Andrews Parkway.

The conference will feature welcoming remarks from Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray, as well as sessions designed to help job training professionals help the unemployed find work.

Workshop topics will include youth employment, the Massachusetts economy, navigating the CORI system, working with homeless participants, and sustainable workforce development.

For a full conference schedule or to register, please visit http://cwc.cedac.org.
— Martin Luttrell

Copyright 2011 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.

HTML: http://www.telegram.com/article/20110308/NEWS/110309628/1237

SourceWorcester Telegram

Report Finds Massachusetts At Risk of Losing 9,500 Units by 2019 Due to 40-year Mortgage Maturity

Report Finds Massachusetts At Risk of Losing 9,500 Units by 2019 Due to 40-year Mortgage Maturity
January 31, 2011
The Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) released an analysis this month of outcomes when housing developments in Massachusetts have reached the end of their 40-year HUD-subsidized mortgage with no other affordability restrictions.
“The Year 40 Problem in Massachusetts– Analysis of the First Wave of Housing Projects” reports that 17 of the 19 projects that have reached year 40 with no other restrictions lost some or all affordability and that 55% of the affordable units (2,105) were lost. It found that having a Section 8 contract was the strongest predictor that units would be preserved while location and market rents were not predictive. Overall, 70% of the Section 8 units in the 19 developments were preserved, but only 13% of the shallow subsidy units. The report details the economic logic of this finding and estimates that Massachusetts could lose 9,500 of the 13,200 affordable units in 110 projects that will reach maturity by 2019 (1,200 with Section 8 and 8,300 shallow subsidy units).
Full CEDAC Report

Hyperlink: http://www.melkinginstitute.org/2011/01/report-finds-massachusetts-at-risk-of-losing-9500-units-by-2019-due-to-40-year-mortgage-maturity/

SourceMel King Institute Blog

A haven for homeless veterans: Pittsfield community a first in the nation

A haven for homeless veterans
Pittsfield community a first in the nation

By David Abel
Globe Staff / November 8, 2010
PITTSFIELD — Like too many veterans of the Vietnam War, Tom Clark has been homeless for years. Now he’s making a list of all the domestic items he will soon need — a loveseat, vacuum cleaner, an iron — and considering things he never imagined would be a concern, such as how to match his bedding with curtains.
“This is unbelievable that this is possible,’’ said Clark, 58, a former Marine corporal, as he shared his list of household items with fellow veterans from nearby shelters who will join him this month in a new, daintily manicured complex in Pittsfield.
It is the nation’s first community of its kind for homeless veterans and part of a new approach to fighting homelessness: Instead of moving those without homes into overcrowded emergency shelters or transitional places far from services, the $6.1 million project that looks like a high-end condo complex provides them with attractive one-bedroom and studio apartments for as long as they want to stay.
The new community, which was built beside a shelter for veterans and includes an array of mental health and addiction services, allows the veterans to buy in with a $2,500 deposit and, depending on the size of the apartment, make regular payments of either $640 or $740 from their disability checks or other income to an association that they run.
Local banks are helping some of the veterans cover their deposits, and others will be allowed to pay them over time. They will also build equity, and the units will be theirs as long as they make their payments.
“There’s nowhere else like this in the country,’’ said Peter Dougherty, director of homeless veterans’ programs for the US Department of Veterans Affairs, who said that last year, there were an estimated 107,000 homeless veterans, down from about 250,000 a decade ago.
“It offers a unique opportunity to take veterans that have been homeless and turn them into homeowners,’’ he said. “It really is an opportunity that has not happened in other places yet. We’re really interested in seeing how well it works.’’
The project was the idea of the directors of Soldier On, a local nonprofit provider of services for homeless veterans that houses about 500 veterans a year at shelters and transitional housing in Pittsfield and Leeds. The group broke ground last year on the project after receiving money from a congressional earmark and state grants.
Jack Downing, president of Soldier On, said he was inspired by the idea that there is a simple solution to homelessness: housing. But he noted that the challenge in previous efforts to house the homeless has not just been finding housing but keeping the homeless in their homes.
“I realized that we were sending people to facilities where they were going to be isolated and lonely, which is the gateway to mental illness,’’ said Downing, whose group plans an additional 120 units for homeless veterans at the former State Police Training Academy in Agawam and a similar number of homes on the Veterans Affairs campus in Northampton. “When I saw what else was out there, I thought that we had to come up with something different.’’
Unlike other programs, he said, their project will give the homeless a sense of ownership and a feeling of permanence. They will be free to decorate their new homes as they like and do what they choose inside. But when they experience hard times or have other problems, they will be able to turn to a community of like-minded veterans who will be their neighbors.
They will also be able get help when needed from social workers and therapists at the adjacent shelter, which is separated from the new development by a small parking lot.
“It’s taken a lot to get this launched, but this is where homelessness ends,’’ Downing said. “We expect this is where these guys will spend the rest of their lives. We’re going to build a memorial wall here, so people know who lived and died here.’’
Unlike the shelters and other housing run by Soldier On, which sometimes removes people if they are caught drinking or using drugs, act violently, or violate other policies, he said there will be few rules for the veterans moving into the new housing, aside from obeying the law.
“We will treat them like adults,’’ Downing said.
The project is named the Gordon H. Mansfield Veterans Community, after the former deputy secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs Department. Mansfield served from 2005 to 2008 and helped build support for the project.
“This is completely unique and hopefully leads us in a different direction,’’ Mansfield said in a phone interview, noting that the high expenses would make it a difficult program to replicate on a large scale. “I really believe that this is the kind of solution we need.’’
The multicolored apartments each have large windows and closets, solar panels on the roofs, modern kitchens, tiled floors, and handicap-accessible showers.
Most of them look onto a grassy courtyard with newly planted trees, benches, and other amenities, including several Vermont Castings grills and a horseshoe pit. There will also be a laundry room and gym for residents.
The scope of the project has made the veterans, who were chosen from a pool of residents at Soldier On’s other facilities, excited and nervous.
Lenny Costa, 58, a former Army corporal who spent years fighting a heroin addiction, said he hasn’t been able to sleep recently, because he was so excited about his new place.
“It did scare me for a while, but I’m going to have a big safety net all around,’’ said Costa, who said he can hardly wait to take up cooking. “The way things are I can’t afford not to live here. All I can say is that we’re really fortunate.’’
Jay Baran, 47, who served as a fireman in the Coast Guard, said he feels like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.’’
“I keep thinking, ‘There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home,’ ’’ he said. “This is as much of a win-win opportunity as I could have imagined. I’d be crazy not to take this.’’
As for Tom Clark, his list includes a colander and blender, a cutlery set, baking pans, end tables, and the stuff that turns water blue in the toilet. It continues to grow as other vets give him ideas.
“I see this as a new beginning,’’ he said. “Really, it’s the beginning of a new life.’’
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

URL: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/11/08/pittsfield_a_haven_for_homeless_veterans/?page=2

SourceBoston Globe

A lifeline’s fight to grow

A lifeline’s fight to grow
By Adrian Walker
Globe Columnist / November 8, 2010
Wanda Lugo has a big smile, a gregarious personality, and a list of ailments that would be daunting for anyone, let alone a woman who spends her life shuttling between homeless shelters.
“I have diabetes, sciatica, arthritis, and asthma,’’ she told me last week. “Before, I wasn’t taking good care of myself. I was out on the street trying to control my blood sugar as best I could. Since I’ve been here, it’s been in the normal range.’’
We were talking at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program’s headquarters in the South End. Through its Barbara McInnis House, this underappreciated organization offers short-term clinical care for homeless people whose ailments simply cannot be effectively treated in the course of life on the streets. People with diabetes qualify, as do cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Dr. Jessie Gaeta is the medical director of the McInnis House, and she has seen firsthand how treatment and housing go hand in hand.
She has come to think of homelessness as a pressing medical issue.
“Diabetes is a great example,’’ she told me. “If you’re living outside, you don’t have access to a refrigerator. Even carrying syringes is a problem, because it makes you a target.
“People would come in and I would do my best, but no matter what I did, they couldn’t control their glucose levels or keep their blood pressure down. I began to realize that the single biggest thing they needed was a stable living environment.’’
The average stay at the McInnis House is a few weeks, but for many patients the key to better health and longer lives is to find housing permanently.
That is the premise behind the organization’s proposed project in Jamaica Plain.
At the original site of the McInnis House, near Egleston Square, Health Care for the Homeless has big plans: a facility that would combine medical care and permanent housing for homeless people.
But there is also a battle brewing. Though the proposal has been approved by the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council, it has generated opposition from some residents who seem to believe that the presence of formerly homeless people could be bad for the neighborhood.
The project still has to be blessed by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and opponents have quietly pressed City Hall to block it.
Health Care for the Homeless officials are so wary of conflict that they barely want to discuss it. And the conflict is especially strange because the same group ran a facility at the very same site for 15 years, before McInnis House moved to the South End a couple of years ago.
“We have had a lot of support from the neighborhood over the years, and I would rather focus on that,’’ said Bob Taube, the group’s executive director. “This project will greatly extend what we can accomplish.’’
The opponents appear likely to run into a formidable foe of their own: the mayor.
“Of course I support it. It’s a space for people to rebuild their lives,’’ Mayor Thomas M. Menino said. “These are people who’ve fallen on hard times.’’
He said he had been surprised that the project was meeting with neighborhood opposition. “People in Jamaica Plain are very sensitive to the human factor.’’
The planned building would not be a shelter; the whole point of it is to get people out of shelters.
I met a man named Darrell Dupont at McInnis House. He is 47 and has multiple sclerosis, among other ailments.
He said he is healthier now than he has been in a long time, after a few weeks off the street, and he explained the importance of having a roof over his head very succinctly.
“Without this place, I’d be a goner,’’ he said. “I know that. Without this, I wouldn’t be here.’’
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

URL: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/boston/jamaicaplain/articles/2010/11/08/a_lifelines_fight_to_grow/?s_campaign=8315

SourceBoston Globe

Mayor Menino Celebrates Additional Housing, New Retail at Hyde Square’s Blessed Sacrament Site

Mayor Menino Celebrates Additional Housing, New Retail at Hyde Square’s Blessed Sacrament Site
November 1, 2010
by Massachusetts RealEstateRama
November 1, 2010 – (RealEstateRama) — Mayor Thomas M. Menino today joined the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (JPNDC), New Atlantic Development Corporation (NADC), Harvard University officials, and community members in celebrating the new Doña Betsaida Gutiérrez Housing Cooperative, located at the corner of Centre and Creighton Streets. The mixed-use building, named for a long time Jamaica Plain activist, is the latest completed phase of affordable housing development at the $50 million Blessed Sacrament parish site.
Today’s ribbon cutting ceremony also marked the formal start of the third phase, which includes the renovation of the 13,700 square-foot former convent into 28 Single-Room-Occupancy units. Upon completion in early 2011, the campus will boast a total of 81 new housing units and over 7,500 square feet of retail space, totaling $28 million. Among other attributes, residents will benefit from an outdoor plaza for community gatherings and 145 off-street parking spaces.
“Today, we’re celebrating the evolution of the Blessed Sacrament parish site, and the new life that this redevelopment brings to the streetscape, the Hyde Square neighborhood, and the community at large,” said Mayor Menino. “The progress that the Doña Betsaida Gutiérrez Housing Cooperative demonstrates would not be possible without the tremendous commitment of JPNDC, New Atlantic, and their partners. But I especially want to commend the neighbors for their dedication to bringing new, quality, affordable housing to Jamaica Plain.”
In 2004, the Archdiocese of Boston announced the closure of the 115-year-old Blessed Sacrament parish in Hyde Square, prompting parishioners, residents and small businesses to work with the City and local organizations to develop a suitable plan for its reuse. Under the leadership of JPNDC and NADC, more than 1,400 signatures were collected in support of affordable housing and other uses that would benefit the Jamaica Plan community. The development team subsequently acquired the church and the 3.2 acres on which it sits in 2005.
The Doña Betsaida Gutiérrez Housing Cooperative boasts 36 units of affordable rental housing, 12 of which are already occupied, and 7,600 square feet of ground-floor retail space that is expected to house at least one new restaurant. Of the new units, 20 will be marketed to households at or below 60% of Area Median Income (AMI); eight of the units will be marketed to households at or below 30% of AMI; four of the units will be set-aside for participants of the Community Based Housing program through the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, and the remaining four units will be set aside for formerly homeless residents.
Construction of the $15 million mixed-use building began last fall, following completion of the development’s first phase, Creighton Commons, through which the former parish rectory was renovated into 16 units of affordable homeownership housing.
The development has been made possible, in part, by a City contribution totaling more than $4.3 million, including $1.2 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. Mayor Menino credited this substantial city investment to the leadership of Senator John Kerry, Congressman Michael Capuano, and Congressman Stephen Lynch, calling Massachusetts’s delegation instrumental in Boston maintaining a strong economy.
Blessed Sacrament is also one of the largest Boston-based recipients of funds made possible by the Harvard 20/20/2000 Initiative; a total of $1.3 million in low-interest loans through both Boston Community Capital and the Local Initiative Support Corporation supported the site acquisition as well as construction financing for Blessed Sacrament’s Phase I. The ribbon cutting was also an occasion to recognize the overall impact of the 20/20/2000 initiative, which celebrates its tenth year this year.
“Supporting the supply of affordable housing in Cambridge and Boston is just one of the many ways that Harvard is working to improve our local communities,” said Harvard President Drew Faust. “We are pleased to join with the leadership of both cities on the 20/20/2000 Initiative, which has helped to finance nearly one out of every six units built in Cambridge and Boston and provided many local working families with homes.”
Harvard 20/20/2000 was launched in 2000, in response to a growing need for affordable housing following the end of rent control in the 1990s, during which Boston and Cambridge both witnessed skyrocketing housing costs while federal and state resources declined. Leaders in Boston and Cambridge made increasing the supply of affordable housing a priority and Harvard responded with the initiative that included $10 million of low interest loans to non-profit housing agencies in each city coupled with $1 million in direct grants to local agencies to explore innovative approaches to affordable housing development. To date, 4,350 units of affordable housing in neighborhoods of Boston and Cambridge have been supported with 20/20/2000 funds.
Additional funding was made available by: Boston Community Capital; Local Initiatives Support Corporation; Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development; Affordable Housing Trust Fund; the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation; MassDevelopment; Massachusetts Housing Partnership; Property and Casualty Initiative; US Bank, and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

URL: http://massachusetts.realestaterama.com/2010/11/01/mayor-menino-celebrates-additional-housing-new-retail-at-hyde-squares-blessed-sacrament-site-ID0278.html

SourceMassachusetts RealEstateRama

Earth angels: These five innovators are doing good deeds at home and far away.

Earth angels
These five innovators are doing good deeds at home and far away.
By Elizabeth Gehrman

The Playground Maverick Mav Pardee creates natural spaces that children love to explore. As Mav Pardee was growing up, every family vacation involved the outdoors. Hiking and camping, crossing streams and gathering wood for the fire, she says, “give you a kind of courage and make you more comfortable with your own physical abilities.”
Now that she’s director of the Children’s Investment Fund, a Boston-based nonprofit that provides funding and guidance to help early childhood and after-school facilities create high-quality spaces, the 62-year-old Pardee is making sure local children can have the same kind of experiences. She’s bringing the campground to them in the form of natural playgrounds filled with trees, hills, rock, sand, and water features.
“Children who play in a natural environment as opposed to a traditional playground play longer,” says the Concord resident. “They move more, and they carry on imaginative sagas from day to day, so the play is richer. They make up games and use their imagination. They develop better motor coordination, and research shows natural environments also help reduce stress.”
The natural playground movement started a few years ago and is quickly picking up steam nationwide. The four examples funded and built by CIF – all of which reused as many materials from the site as possible – are the first of their kind in the Boston area, but Pardee hopes they won’t be the last. “These playgrounds give kids a lifelong connection to the natural world that some of them would not have,” she says. “Unless you know nature and love nature, you don’t worry about it.” * * *

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
Hyperlink: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2010/10/10/earth_angels/?page=3

SourceThe Globe Magazine

Early Education Pays Big Dividends

Early Education Pays Big Dividends
By Mav Pardee
Special to the Worcester Business Journal
August 16, 2010
________________________________________
Business and education leaders in Worcester met recently to consider the impact of early childhood programs on economic development across the region. This small business sector is an essential part of the socio-economic infrastructure for employers and working parents. According to the National Economic Development and Law Center, two-thirds of children in Massachusetts live in families where all parents are in the workforce.
Without good, affordable child care, parents can’t work and employers face absenteeism and reduced productivity.
Early childhood and after school programs are an economic driver in their own right as well, employing 30,000 people in Massachusetts and generating $1.5 billion in revenues.
Pipeline Development
But most importantly, good early childhood programs are a vital investment in workforce development. Studies on the impact of high-quality early childhood education consistently show a 7 to 16 percent return on investment in better school performance, reduced special education and social welfare spending, higher educational attainment and lifetime earnings.
Interest in the potential impact of early education on the economy continues to grow because of concerns about the lagging academic performance of American students and the long-term impact on U.S. competitiveness. We’ve learned that merely focusing on K-12 schooling may be too little, too late.
The lag in language development and pre-literacy skills begins at a very young age. Brain research shows that infants are born ready to learn if they have appropriate interactions with their parents and caregivers. Learning to talk is a necessary precursor to learning to read.
Education researchers calculate a 30-million-word gap by age 4 between children of mothers on welfare and children of college-educated parents. Lower income children hear less spoken language so they have smaller vocabularies, and consequently, learn new words at a slower rate.
Why does this matter? It turns out that a child’s verbal ability at age 3 is a reliable predictor of reading ability in third grade. Third-grade reading ability is a reliable predictor of future academic success, high school graduation and workforce readiness.
In Worcester, 65 percent of third graders are not proficient readers and will likely face challenges in developing those skills. The data shows that we should invest earlier in their education, particularly for young children from low-income families. Staff qualifications, curriculum and program leadership are crucial elements in program quality, but there is strong evidence that the space where a program operates is too often overlooked. A well-designed and equipped environment supports learning, while poorly adapted, makeshift space can undermine it. One study showed that with no change in teaching staff, child population or curriculum, a move from inadequate space into a new, carefully designed early childhood facility led to a seven-fold increase in teacher-child interactions. Those interactions are critical to language development, attitudes about learning, and children’s social and emotional development.
The business community understands the impact of good workspace on employee morale and productivity. We are increasingly convinced that good work and play space is critical to educational program quality. To that end, the Children’s Investment Fund is conducting a statewide inventory to assess the condition of early learning and after school facilities across Massachusetts. There are 14 Worcester program sites in the sample. We will know by early 2011 how we might improve the physical environment for these centers, so that we can help improve education outcomes for the third graders of 2015 and beyond.n
Mav Pardee is program manager for the Boston-based Children’s Investment Fund, an affiliate of the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp.

Hyperlink: http://www.wbjournal.com/news47063.html

SourceWorcester Business Journal

A New Kind Of Playground

A New Kind Of Playground

By Adam Ragusea
Published July 13, 2010

(Courtesy photo)

If you’ve been to a shiny new playground lately, you’ve probably noticed all kinds of metal and plastic gizmos, crazy slides and climbing structures. It looks like fun, but some child development experts have been advancing an alternative in recent years. They’re called “natural playgrounds” — play spaces that use natural materials and leave it up to the kids to decide what to do with them.

Last year, Boston’s non-profit Children’s Investment Fund put out a quarter-million dollars in grant money for local schools and early childhood centers to build a handful of natural playgrounds. We checked out one that caters to a very special population.

Guests:

* Tamar Warburg, an architect at Studio G architects and one of the park’s designers
* David Elkind, professor emeritus of child development at Tufts University

SourceWBUR - Radio Boston

A New Playground for Kids to Play Naturally

A New Playground for Kids to Play Naturally
YOUNG: There’s a new kind of playground in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. It’s designed to bring a small part of the great outdoors to the inner-city. The natural playground just opened, and it’s already turning out to be more than just child’s play. Ebony Payne of our sister program Planet Harmony reports.
[KIDS PLAYING]
PAYNE: It’s morning recess at the Crispus Attucks Children’s Center in Boston’s inner city neighborhood of Dorchester. Preschoolers aged one through six are having fun but in an entirely different way than what they’re used to.

Children play on top of their new grassy hill. (Photo: Ebony Payne)
[KIDS PLAYING]
CHRISTIAN 1: I call it an oasis in the middle of the city.- an experience that urban children don’t usually have.
[KIDS PLAYING]
PAYNE: That’s Leslie Christian, President of Crispus Attucks. She proudly shows off the results of the preschool’s three year project. It’s a natural playground and it just opened. Kids are rolling down a grassy hill and catching bugs…
[KIDS PLAYING, “HEY, I GOT ONE”]
PAYNE: …climbing wood poles, and all over a fortress made of logs, and playing with water…
[KIDS PLAYING, “OH”]
PAYNE: …soon, there’ll be a butterfly garden
CHRISTIAN: Before we did this playground it was a traditional playground with plastic structures, climbing things. There was very little green. And so what we tried to do was develop something that was green, beautiful.
PAYNE: What use to be here at the Crispus Attucks preschool was your average metal jungle gym and a plastic slide. There were no shrubs, few trees, not much shade. And just next door, a rusty fence surrounding an overgrown field where somebody dumped a shopping cart. The city was supposed to develop the land… but never did. Leslie Christian had enough. She decided the time had come to bring nature to her playground.
CHRISTIAN: We took out a lot of the brush, we opened this up, we re-grated. Eventually what we’re going do, is we’re going to be planting Virginia Creepers along the fence so that they’re will be privacy, and it will be completely green and the noise level from the street will be reduced.
[KIDS PLAYING]
PAYNE: Natural playgrounds like this can be found in suburbs, but this is the first of it’s kind in Boston’s inner city. It’s an environment designed to stimulate the senses. Discover smooth stones, and sweet smelling plants. The goal is to foster interaction and create a sense of intimacy with the natural world.
CHRISTIAN:
Over here to the left you’ll see the vegetable gardens.
[KIDS PLAYING]
PAYNE: Each preschool class gets their own little plot where they dig in the dirt and plant veggies. Kids and plants grow. At the end of the season they’ll harvest and cook them up.
CHRISTIAN: And it’s really helpful to these children who don’t see things growing and think that all fruits and vegetables come from the Stop and Shop. So they’ll learn where they come from and then they’ll appreciate eating them.
PAYNE: A third of these kids are already considered obese …and they’re not even 6 years old. Many will go on to develop diabetes.
CHRISTIAN: If we can start them off to think in more healthy ways, to think not about fast food so much, about fruits and vegetables, and about exercise. If you develop it early, its just natural, it comes natural to them.
[KIDS PLAYING, “THAT’S BECAUSE I’M LITTLE”]
PAYNE: But Leslie Christian says the new playground its more than just food and games. The natural environment is meant to stimulate cognitive development and is a learning experience for kids and their teachers.
CHRISTIAN: Oh, they love it! They are spending so much time outside now where as before it was a struggle both to get the teachers to get them outside. And, they love it, they love being in the green.
[KIDS PLAYING MUSICAL BANGING]
COX: Music and movement, that’s what we’re doing here, music and movement.
PAYNE : Teacher Diane Cox and her class of terrible twos have learned to love the new natural playground.

Kids run around the new track at the Crispus Attucks Children’s Center. (Photo: Ebony Payne)
COX: I think that I see a difference. The difference vs. always climbing a structure and swinging. They get to roll around; I see more rolling around in the grass. They want to look at the plants, and at the green habitat. So it’s a lot better, its something new for them, they’re not used to seeing something like this on an everyday basis…
PAYNE: Building this natural playground in Dorchester, didn’t come cheap. A traditional commercial playground goes for tens of thousands of dollars. Leslie Christian says this one costs a quarter of a million.
CHRISTIAN: Most preschools are in the business of just trying to survive in this economy and not much less spending money to develop something…No public funding sources are giving money for this kind of development. This is all privately funded, philanthropic money.
JORDAN: Oh it’s more expensive to develop. But the long-term effects are what we’re all looking forward to.
PAYNE: Theresa Jordan is project manager of the Children’s Investment Fund. The Fund provided the initial and largest loan to the Crispus Attucks’ natural playground. It’s a lot of money she says but it’s an investment in kids and a community, where gangs are a way of life and too often… death.
[TV SOUNDS] REPORTER: This crime that was committed in Boston last night was about as brazen a murder as you can imagine. It has left the community outraged and a mother heartbroken.
PAYNE: Amid the danger in Dorchester the Crispus Attucks natural playground has unexpectedly has become a green safe haven for families, says Leslie Christian.
CHRISTIAN: What happens is the playgrounds in the area, really, they’re really the domains of the gangs. And so then what happens is families send their children over here because this is safe.
[KIDS PLAYING]
PAYNE: This playground is the first of four natural playgrounds to be built in Boston’s low-income neighborhoods. The next is set to open later this month, giving kids with HIV/ AIDS a green place to play.
[KIDS PLAYING GO JOY GO]
For Planet Harmony and Living on Earth, I’m Ebony Payne in Dorchester, Massachusetts
[KIDS PLAYING]
YOUNG: Planet Harmony invites everyone to the environmental discussion and has special appeal for young African Americans. Log in and lend your stories, audio, video to our site at myplanetharmony.com.
Related links:
– Read more about the Crispus Attucks Children’s Center
– The Children’s Investment Fund sponsors projects here and abroad
YOUNG: Our crew includes Bobby Bascomb, Eileen Bolinsky, Bruce Gellerman, Annie Glausser, Ingrid Lobet, Bridget Macdonald, Helen Palmer, Jessica Ilyse Smith, Ike Sriskandarajah, and Mitra Taj, with help from Sarah Calkins, and Sammy Sousa. Our interns are Amanda Martinez and Meghan Miner. We had engineering help this week from Dana Chisholm. Jeff Turton is our technical director. Alison Lirish Dean composed our themes. Steve Curwood is our executive producer. You can find us anytime at LOE dot org. – and check out our new Facebook page – PRI’s Living On Earth. I’m Jeff Young. Thanks for listening.
Living on Earth wants to hear from you! Email us at comments@loe.org, or call our listener line (1-800-218-9988). Our mailing address is:
Living on Earth
20 Holland Street Suite 408
Somerville, MA 02144-2749

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