6 minute read
For The Love Of Play
Harry Hirsch, a 13-year-old, middle-school student from Highland Park, has raised more than $20,000 to build playgrounds for students in low-income communities in the Chicago area.
BY MITCH HURST
It’s not hyperbolic to say Harry Hirsch, at the ripe young age of 13, is a fundraising legend.
For his birthday parties, since he was just 2 years of age, Harry has foregone the Thomas the Tank Engines and other birthday presents, instead asking his pals (and parents, obviously) to donate to KaBOOM!, a national organization that builds or refurbishes playgrounds in underserved communities throughout the country.
This summer, in lieu of receiving gifts for his bar mitzvah, Harry asked that donations instead be made to KaBOOM! to build a playground outside Avalon Park Fine and Performing Arts School on Chicago’s south side.
A quick pro at grassroots fundraising, Hirsch also reached out to loved ones, distributed flyers at school, delivered speeches to his father’s business colleagues, and created videos on social media to solicit donations.
Hirsch is a big playground fanatic, you could say.
Even now, he’d find it tough to walk past one without climbing some bars or hopping on a swing. And that passion for playgrounds has paid off in a big way. Hirsch raised more than $20,000 in donations for the Avalon Park school project, helping to cover the financial gap needed with corporate sponsor Discover Card and Chicago Public Schools for the KaBOOM! playground equipment, and also enough to donate indoor play equipment and STEM games for the winter months. He also recently helped to build the new playground on a rain-drenched day this summer.
“I played on playgrounds a lot when I was 2 and then my mom heard about KaBOOM! and she was interested in it,” Hirsch, a 7th grader at Edgewood Middle in Highland Park says. “She noticed how much how much I loved playgrounds, and she couldn’t imagine a kid’s life without one.”
Hirsch’s mom, Sarah, says when Harry was 2, KaBOOM! was running a challenge at the time where it had you find how many different playgrounds parents could go on with their toddlers,
“I was so fascinated by the way I would watch him at a new playground and see how his brain would work trying to climb up a different climbing structure or try a new slide or just figure out the lay of the land at a new playground,” she says. “The more playgrounds he did that summer the more his speech started improving and I thought, ‘I wonder if there’s something to this’. I just felt like going to the playground was having such a big impact on him.”
Hirsch says she was thankful for the KaBOOM! challenge that summer when Harry was 2, and that was what originally prompted her to think instead of bringing a present to Harry’s birthday party to ask guests to donate to the organization. Eventually, after a few years, Harry caught on to the idea of no presents and became a fundraiser and spokesperson for other kids to donate their birthday for the cause. He’s something of a pioneer.
KaBOOM! was founded nearly 30 years ago when a young brother and sister died while playing in an abandoned car in Washington, D.C. Subsequent reporting byThe Washington Post showed a lack of sufficient play areas in low-income communities throughout the area.
“Our founder saw this story and just decided to mobilize the community resources to get the community a playground,” says Lysa Ratliff, KaBOOM!’s CEO. “Fast forward 28 years later only to realize there are communities all across our country that don't have play spaces. Imagine going to school and there's no playground, there's just a black top.”
Ratliff says the organization’s work is about making sure that it is bringing together resources and investments to bring community designed play spaces to communities that don't have them, and 99 percent of the time those are communities that have been historically disinvested and mostly communities of color.
“Our focus is making sure all kids have access to amazing places to play. There's something really special about our process,” she says. “We're trying to move the needle to make sure any kid that goes to school, any kid that lives in their community, has all the benefits that come from a playground and a park that they can kind of live out their childhood and be with their families and friends.”
What's special about KaBOOM! is that its process involves engaging kids and community members in designing what they want to see in their playground.
It’s not top down, but rather a partnership with community residents and families. The organization works closely with school principals, Boys and Girls Clubs, and YMCAs and other child-service organizations that might not have the resources build play spaces.
“What's really special about it is that the community builds it. Volunteers like Harry come out and the community is there, and they get their hands dirty and work together to build that play space.” Ratliff says. “We've built or improved over 17,000 spaces, and our focus is really figuring out how can we lock arms with our child-serving organizations and system partners to focus on where they don't have play spaces that need them and get them built.”
As for the young Mr. Hirsch and his passion for playgrounds, Ratliff says he really is one of a kind.
“Harry is very special and has been supporting us since he was two. There are no other Harrys, just one of him,” Ratliff says. “He’s not just raised money for us; he's come out and spent his time helping support us in building play spaces. His energy is the essence of what we think is important about childhood.”
