October 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 56

G R E E N S C H O O LYA R D

look out onto these green spaces.
In addition to the health benefits
of the new space, the project also
will improve the local environment. The design incorporates native plants and other features that
require less water to maintain than
grass fields. Nearly every summer,
local water use is limited to reserve
water for the lakes that provide
habitat for endangered suckerfish
and more than 350 species of birds.
By designing for low-water use, the
schoolyard can keep up an attractive appearance year-round, and
the native plants will help create
new habitat for local wildlife.

Park and recreation agencies,
city planners and even
school districts can use park
development as a tool to
combat systemic racism and
improve community health
equity by understanding a
community's speciﬁc needs and
designing spaces that reﬂect the
community's values.
Park and recreation agencies,
city planners and even school
districts can use park development as a tool to combat systemic
racism and improve community
health equity by understanding a
community's specific needs and
designing spaces that reflect the
community's values. Especially
through centering community
voice in the decision-making process, park development can give
power to people who have historically been silenced or ignored
when it comes to making choices
about their own communities.
54

Parks & Recreation

Building Support on a
Community Scale
Community support for projects
like this is paramount to a project's
success, so one of the first steps
should be finding out what your
community actually cares about.
In 2019, the Chiloquin City
Council completed a community
survey to understand what their
residents cared most about. Having
a new park made the list, but the
number one concern for the community was safety. " The one tiny
park in town now isn't a place I'd
feel safe sending my kids to go play
because of some inappropriate behaviors being made by some older
teens and adults who use the park, "
says Ochoa. Even though community members wanted a new park,
they were much more concerned
about safety.
To build broader community
support for the green schoolyard,
the team emphasized the safety
aspects of the new space. " It's on
school property, so during the day
you know that it's being watched
and that kids are safe there, "
Ochoa says. And, since it's located
on a school site, the space really is
ideal for children to utilize during
afterschool hours - something
parents will appreciate. Ochoa
adds that the green schoolyard is
being billed as " a safe space for
kids and families, " and the community has responded with widespread support.
Messaging around the project
also describes the other benefits of
the new space. Kids will still reap
the mental and physical health benefits of a green schoolyard, and the
district won't need to worry about
dry, dead grass during the hot summer months. And, research shows
that these types of greening projects can have the biggest mental

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health impact on people facing the
worst outcomes, which can have a
marked effect on community health
equity. But by leading with the public's number one value in messaging, the core team of partners has
been able to drum up widespread
community support for the project
in ways that " a new playground for
the school " all by itself wouldn't
have done.
Values-based messaging, or leading with a community's values in
your communications, is a skill
that park and recreation professionals can use to build support for
projects in your own communities.
Learning what your community
cares about is an important step
in community engagement that
can help make your projects more
valuable, and it's an important step
in the project design process, too.
If your community's values don't
align with the project you're trying
to create, then it's probably not the
right project.
Once you know what your community values, you can find messages that connect your project to
those values. NRPA's Greener Parks
for Health Advocacy Toolkit is one
tool that park and recreation professionals can use to craft valuesbased messages for various audiences in their own communities.
In Chiloquin, values-based messaging has been critical to increasing public support for a project that
was already led and designed by
community members. In February, community supporters spoke
about the importance of the project in front of the Klamath County School Board. Ochoa led by
explaining the difference having
a safe space for their kids would
make to the community. Three
elementary school students talked about how a green schoolyard

October 2020 - Parks & Recreation

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