Long Story Short

In 1990, three Grosse Pointe Park families set out to replace the WWII-era playground at Patterson Park. Their goal was a “community project, community-funded, and community-built”. Over the course of the next year, their “Playscape in the Park” project captured the imaginations of the entire city.

There were fundraisers galore, including the collection of 720,000 pennies by businesses and children alike. Elementary school students joined the playground architect, Robert Leathers and Associates, to imagine the pirate ships, dragon slides, and space tunnels they wanted at the park.

In October of 1991, twelve hundred local volunteers showed up to complete the building of the playscape in five days. The volunteers were fed by local businesses, child care was provided by neighbors, and a construction paper loop chain was built by children as the ceremonial ribbon to be cut.

The playscape at Patterson Park represents a scale of community effort traditionally reserved for fiction.

We built this. We love it. We hope you have fun.

Did you know?

The original project cost was $150,000. $100,000 was saved because community volunteers built the playscape.
Over five miles of lumber was used to build the playscape.
Jefferson Chevrolet donated $50 for every Grosse Pointe Park resident who bought a new or used car and $5 for anyone who had their car serviced during the month of June 1991.
The most common requests from children when designing the playscape were dragons, mazes, and castles.

Pennies from Heaven

One of the more creative fundraisers was a project called “Pennies from Heaven”. Local businesses put out jars for pennies and local children emptied their piggy banks. The grand finale was the counting of the pennies; where all collectors gathered in the Defer Elementary gymnasium and poured their pennies onto the floor.

Patterns were made on the floor while pennies were scooped with snow shovels. The final count was 720,000 pennies! This raised $7,200 of the $50,000 playground cost.

In the end, it required three vans to transport the pennies to Comerica Bank. The sheer weight was too much for one van to bear.