The Grand Opening for the new PNC Grow Up Great Playground in Inwood Park is August 10th. A ceremony will be held to officially cut the ribbon at 3 p.m. and will coincide a community cookout and backpacks/school supplies giveaway from 3-5:30 p.m.
About the Playground
The new playground, located on the circle drive off of Wellington Place., in the Mount Auburn neighborhood, becomes the largest play area in any Cincinnati Park and contains fun and challenging play features for children ages 2-12.
A $150,000 grant from the PNC Foundation helped replace a 20-year-old playground at the park. It is fully accessible to all children and benefits an underserved community located two miles from downtown Cincinnati.
Some of the playground’s features include:
- a wheelchair accessible spinner
- a 90-foot zip line (a first for Cincinnati Parks)
- “tot”-sized houses
- musical instruments
- a swingset including a fully accessible ADA swing
- a “drag strip” for foot races
In 2019, local children were invited to a design charrette to describe what their dream playground would look like, including drawing playground ideas, voting on playground elements, and participating in an open discussion. Cincinnati Parks used the children’s ideas for inspiration. Inclusion and Accessibility experts from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital advised on the playground’s accessible features and final design.
“The Cincinnati Parks Foundation and its Board of Directors are grateful to have partnered again with PNC for the design and development of another beautiful new playground in the Cincinnati Park system,” said Jennifer Spieser, Cincinnati Parks Foundation Executive Director. “PNC’s gift replaced a 20-year-old playground within Inwood Park, which is fully accessible, and includes the first-ever zipline in a Cincinnati Park! For more than 20 years, PNC has been committed to supporting various Cincinnati Parks projects, and we are most grateful.” Inwood Park is identified in the Cincinnati Park Foundation’s Neighborhood Parks Campaign, focusing on the vitalization and improvement of geographically diverse Parks projects and programs in throughout the city.
The $150,000 PNC Foundation grant was part of the 15th anniversary celebration of PNC Grow Up Great, a bilingual $500 million, multi-year initiative of PNC that prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life. PNC Bank provides employees with 40 hours of paid time off each year for Grow Up Great volunteerism. Employees can earn grants of up to $3,000 each year to be awarded to a partner early learning organization. To date, employee volunteerism has resulted in $7.2 million in grants across PNC’s markets.