New Playground Promises More Than Just Fun

For children in Thermal that didn’t have a place to play, three charity organizations — Humana, Kaboom, and Desert Alliance for Community Empowerment — came together to build, pour, nail, and drill together what these kids in the east valley were lacking.

“This area is, what Kaboom likes to call it, a play desert. There’s not facilities, apart from the school, for people to play,” Tom Noland of Humana said.

Humana funded the project and gave local kids the chance to have a hand in the creation.

“The kids were asked to draw ‘what is your dream playground?’ From those drawings, we literally helped to diffuse that into the design,” Noland said.

Six hours, more than two hundred volunteers, and one hundred thousand dollars later – a masterpiece was created.

“It keeps children from playing in the streets, from having problems, from throwing rocks,” volunteer Rodrigo Chavec said.

The debut also kick-started Humana’s week of helping the desert.

“This day launches this week. Humana is sponsoring the Humana Challenge, the PGA Tour event, which we like to describe as well being with a side of golf. That’s because our company is dedicated to helping people achieve lifelong well being,” Noland said.

Humana says it believes a healthy life creates a better community. These monkey bars, slides, and rock walls provide a lot more than just fun.

“If you’re able to play, if you’re able to express yourself creatively, it just has good affects on your entire outlook. I think it’s going to do things for people’s mental health as well as their physical health,” Noland said.

Kaboom says only one in five kids nationwide have a safe playground within walking distance. Now, they’ve added some desert kids to that statistic.