District Receives Playground Grant for Garvanian Park

March 5, 2019

At the January, 2019 IAPD/IPRA Exploring New Heights Conference in Chicago, Vernon Hills Park District was awarded a $47,831 Healthy Play Action Grant from GameTime, a PlayCore company. The grant funds, which total $1.45 million, are part of an Illinois statewide initiative to promote healthy play. Working with IPRA (Illinois Park and Recreation Association), GameTime developed the multi-year grant program in 2016 to provide matching funds to assist parks throughout Illinois to create playground spaces that encourage best practice designs for active behavior.

The matching grant of $47,831 will be used to replace Vernon Hills Park District’s Garvanian Park playgrounds this summer. The proposed playgrounds will incorporate a variety of the six key play elements to promote healthy lifestyles. The playgrounds are designed to accommodate ages 2-5 years and 5-12 years.

Kids Around the World, a nonprofit organization, will be removing the current playground at Garvanian Park and re-purposing it in an underprivileged area to be determined by the organization.

Below are two renderings for the Garvanian Park playground grant.

Garvanian Park 2-5 Years Playground

Garvanian Park 5-12 Years Playground