By Zach Bramel
A play library, the Trading Post, is an exciting new feature coming to the playground this spring!
You may have seen work crews on the playground these last few months, building a red building with a large porch. That’s the Trading Post, situated right in the middle of Playcosystem, our 17-acre nature playground. Once complete, the Trading Post will function as a materials library of sorts, where guests, young and grown, can “check out” items that will enrich their time on the playground. If the item is reusable, players will be encouraged to return it to the Trading Post porch to be used by someone else.
What kind of items will guests be able to check out? We’ll start out with items that we think will be fun, like tape, clamps, tarps, chalk, cardboard boxes, hammocks, pool noodles, mud kitchen utensils, pull carts, tape measures, and funnels. But we hope that over time, our playground guests will tell us all the cool things they want us to stock.
The Trading Post will also be a place where guests using wheelchairs can make a reservation to borrow our GRIT all-terrain wheelchair, allowing them to explore even more of the playground, including our accessible treehouse (opening later this year!).
Starting this summer, the Trading Post will be open for our Free Play Saturdays, offering fun tools and materials to help make your day of play even better.
