Grattan Playground
The Haight Ashbury Community Nursery School is located at the Grattan Playground in Cole Valley
1180 Stanyan Street at the corner of Alma (415/753-7039). >map it
The playground and the clubhouse are owned and maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, so we are happy (and obliged) to welcome neighborhood children during school hours. If you plan to apply to HACNS, we encourage you to drop in and play as often as you like.
Outdoor Space
The school sits in a large, sandy, clean, and sunny gated playground. It offers climbing structures, swings, and slides. A soccer field and tennis court (or Bigwheel course, depending on how you look at it) bring our real estate to a startling full city block, for use by our 21 children and assorted neighborhood kids.
Indoor Space
The clubhouse has a play/lunch room, and a reading room full of books and cushions. Children can play with blocks, LEGOs, dollhouses, kitchen gear, and trains. Typically, two art projects are in progress when children arrive in the morning.
Equipment and Materials
Favorite outdoor gear includes bikes and Bigwheels, basketballs and hoop, an abundance of sand toys, hoppity hops, stilts, and toy cars and trucks. Several bins of dress-up clothes are always set out.
Friends of Grattan Playground (FGP)
News for 2009/2010
The HACNS was awarded an Innovator Award from the San Francisco Parks Trust. We built two large redwood planter boxes.
www.sfpt.org
Innovator Awards honor Park Partners and other community-based organizations that are committed to improving their neighborhoods, parks or recreational programming in sustainable, forward-thinking ways. Awards are between $500 and $2000 for the purchase of equipment or site-improvements that will help increase park usership and strengthen programs. This year we awarded more than $20,000 to local groups.
See pictures from the awards ceremony held at Visitation Valley Greenway Park, a stunning example of community park redevelopment. Presenting awards were Karen Kidwell, Executive Director, SFPT - James Threat, Manager, SFR&P - and Supervisor Sophie Maxwell
We intend to unite volunteers around the existing "Friends of Grattan Playground". Lets build a new play structure and put in some quality surface covering. We have already been getting grants for planter boxes and the clubhouse roof and donations for the resurfacing. We intend to continue our strong tradition of being the stewards of the park since 1974. Join us at |
In recent years, HACNS has taken on a much more active role as a park steward for Grattan Playground, above and beyond the daily work it does to help maintain the facility. The school has taken the lead in organizing the Friends of Grattan Playground (FGP) group in order to help engage neighbors and community members in support of the park.
HACNS has worked with the Recreation & Park Department to schedule workdays at the playground. The first official workday in October 2005 was a huge success and more than 50 volunteers from HACNS and the neighborhood, in addition to students and staff from UCSF, shoveled and graded more than 25 tons of sand and ripped out weeds and dead plants in front and around the clubhouse.
Subsequent workdays focused on replanting the front areas surrounding the clubhouse. This effort was spearheaded by a HACNS parent who was a professional landscaper. He worked with RPD gardeners to develop an overall workplan for the renovation of the site and a conceptual plan for each of the beds. Planter boxes were also planted around the back of the clubhouse to help "Green" the playground.
Since the fall of 2005, HACNS has held at least 4 workdays a year that included work on the landscaping around the clubhouse. We estimate that since 2005, the Friends of Grattan FGP has completed more than 350 hours of volunteer hours, which equals more $6,300 in volunteer service (based on Independent Sector's the 2005 rate of $18.04 value of volunteer time).
Additionally, HACNS members help maintain the landscaping around the playground and clubhouse on a daily basis such as picking up litter and pet waste. Many regular visitors to the playground have commented on the positive improvements made by HACNS at the playground.
HACNS has also undertaken outreach to expand FGP and currently maintains a Yahoo Group with an email list of more than 20 neighbors that are interested in supporting the park.
HACNS is in contact with the Neighborhood Parks Council and has done outreach at the Cole Street Fair as well as other school events to gather support for FGP and is a member of the Cole Valley Improvement Association. Moving forward the goal of FGP is to work with RPD to develop a plan for the landscaping in back of the clubhouse and lower playground and field.
FGP is also working on engaging Grattan Elementary School and the other nursery schools in the neighborhood that regularly use the playground to help with stewardship efforts.
Please email grattanplaygroundfriends@yahoo.com for more information or to be put on our email list for future events.
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