Helping Kids Have Fun—Safely

It was 2007 when the city of Winston-Salem surveyed its playgrounds and determined a lot of equipment was out of date, and possibly unsafe. Thanks to a commitment by Wake Forest Baptist Health in 2009, city youths today are starting to reap the benefits of what will eventually be new equipment in 14 Winston-Salem parks.

Slide down that. 

A bunch of happy second graders from Winston-Salem’s Brunson Elementary School shouted in delight this April, becoming the first children to try out the new equipment in Hanes Park. Work in five city parks is complete, and more is under way in four other parks. Five parks will get a makeover sometime in the future.

Wake Forest Baptist committed $520,000 over five years in partnership with the city’s WePLAY (We Provide Leisure All Year) program, the total cost of which will be $1.2 million.

“Great cities are known for great parks and we want to ensure Winston-Salem has safe and modern parks for all to enjoy,” Doug Edgeton, Wake Forest Baptist’s executive vice president of medical center administration and president of the Piedmont Triad Research Park, told News 14 Carolina in an interview. “Our mission is to care and to cure, and this partnership allows us to do both.”

National statistics show that close to 80 percent of all playground accidents are a result of falls, something the new equipment, designed for different age levels, should prevent. What the towers, slides, tubes and climbing walls in the rebuilt playgrounds offer are safe and fun ways for children to stay fit.

Partnerships with the city are just one way that Wake Forest Baptist provides outreach. It offers easily accessible health education and screenings to the public, along with sponsorship and leadership for any number of community events, including the Susan G. Komen NC Triad Race for the Cure, the American Heart Association’s Tanglewood Heart & Stroke Walk, Ronald McDonald House’s Sport a Shirt, Share a Night, Hospice & Palliative Care Center’s Camp Carousel, the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce’s Tech Council Technology and Innovation Series and SciWorks’ Where Innovation Begins.

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