Delta, CO (April 27, 2023)
Delta County has started planning the new playground at the Delta County Fairgrounds with funds from the Colorado Health Foundation grant awarded to the county late last year. The process follows the tool kit the Colorado Health Foundation provided that heavily focuses on equitable development and built environment planning at the Delta County Fairgrounds in a community input process.
Delta County, along with assistance from the Nature Connection, Delta County Libraries, Partners of Delta County, and more, assembled a diverse group of residents to assist with input on the design of the new playground area of the Delta County Fairgrounds.
“The Colorado Health Foundation is excited to support Delta County in their efforts to focus equitable design and community engagement practices for the comprehensive re-imagining of their County Fairgrounds,” said Sean Dollard, Program Officer with the Foundation. “This funding opportunity has a compelling trajectory toward ensuring all physical activity spaces are designed with community members’ intent top of mind, which will always culminate toward the most equitable activation of public spaces.”
“April 26th was the second of many meetings to come where the group of local citizens (Co-Creators) that were carefully recruited and have agreed to volunteer their time came together to focus their attention on developing a community space that is suited for a wide variety of Delta County’s diverse population of residents,” said Lindsay Mitchell, Public Information Specialist for Delta County. “We have created a space for these meetings to ignite creativity and fun, providing dinner, games, toys, giveaways, interpreters, childcare, and mileage reimbursement, so there are limited barriers for our group participants to attend and bring their ideas to the table. Most of our participants in the group are not the usual people you would see providing input for a playground, and that’s exactly what we want. We also have representatives from the library, the fairgrounds, and the schools.”
Once the Co-Creators have completed several steps of the planning process, a playground specialist will be brought in to assist the group through the completion of the planning process. The group will present their ideas and work with the specialist to put them in an official application that will then be submitted to The Colorado Health Foundation for the full grant that could fund the construction costs of the new playground area.
For information about The Delta County Fairgrounds Playground, please visit our Fairgrounds Playground web page.
About the Colorado Health Foundation
The Colorado Health Foundation is bringing health in reach for all Coloradans by engaging closely with communities across the state through investing, policy advocacy, learning, and capacity building. For more information, please visit the Colorado Health Foundation website.
