Bolton Hill Nursery has an imaginative new outdoor classroom and “playscape” for its children – a collaboration between the historic neighborhood nursery school and childcare facility and a little-known program within city government.
It began with an unsuccessful application for an environmental grant for the school, according to Kateri Pelton, BHN’s admissions and communications coordinator. She led the grant project and when it failed, she and two BHN parents decided to keep alive the ideas in the application – new nature-based outfitting for the school playground.
“We were looking for a way to develop more outdoor play activities with equipment that is sustainable. Kids wear out toys fast,” she said. Officials at Camp Small, a program within the Forestry Division of Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks, joined the conversation. The result is an impressive arrangement of downed trees and wooden constructs that form a seemingly indestructible array of climbing challenges, benches, play tables and more.
“It has been wonderful. It enables the kids to take risks in safe way – developing resiliency and bravery. They love it. All three cohorts can climb, jump and crawl under and around it,” Pelton said. The newly cut and shaped tree trunks were hauled in on a flatbed truck and lifted with a crane into the play area on the west side of the Lanvale Street schoolyard.
Managed by the Forestry Division within Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks, Camp Small is the sorting and recycling facility for 9,000 tons of tree debris that is collected annually from city-owned street and park trees. The urban wood recycling program uses sawmills and drying kilns to transform the downed trees into lumber, firewood, furniture, and other valuable wood products. Camp Small products are available to everyone: https://www.treebaltimore.org/camp-small.
