JONATHAN ALCORN


A young “workman” expresses his enthusiasm at the 2011 groundbreaking ceremony for Maywood’s Pine Avenue Park. Despite the park’s diminutive size, the community packed it with features.


ABOUT TPL’S PARKS FOR PEOPLE INITIATIVE


TPL’s Parks for People initiative works in cities and suburbs across America to ensure that everyone— in particular, every child—lives no farther than a ten-minute walk from a park, playground, or natural area. Parks are essential to the health of individuals and communities. They offer recreation and renewal, promote exercise, reduce crime, revitalize neigh- borhoods, protect the environment, and bring communities together. Children without access to parks suffer from higher levels of obesity, diabetes, asthma, anxiety, and depression. In some of our nation’s cities, as many as two in three residents have no access to a nearby park, playground, or open space. TPL’s initiative seeks to address this critical need by creating parks where they are needed most, shaping the future of American cit- ies—and American lives—for generations to come. For more information on TPL’s Parks for People initiative, go to tpl.org/parksforpeople.


42 LAND&PEOPLE Fall/Winter 2012


including parents, grandparents, and children. “Now we have stewardship committees that keep the parks clean and neighborhood watches to keep them safe,” Peralta says. For Maywood’s next pocket park, the community


decided on a play structure with images of the color- ful mythic animals of Oaxacan folklore that mirror the heritage of many neighborhood residents. Al- though the long narrow site doesn’t look like much now, it’s already a kid’s paradise to Bernardo Benitez, a lanky 12-year-old who appears the instant visitors set foot on the lot. “There’s gonna be a playground here, and grass, and we’re gonna have a soccer field,” he says, pointing. (He doesn’t play soccer but longs to learn.) And though work isn’t slated to start until the fall,


Benitez, like so many of the residents who took part in the planning process, is already fiercely proud of the future park. “We all helped clean it up, that place,” he said. “And we’re keeping it clean. I just can’t wait.”


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