John:
If every public schoolyard in America functioned as a shared outdoor space, 20 million more people would have access to a park within a 10-minute walk of home.
PS: Will you share what outdoor spaces mean to you? Your reply may get featured in future messages!
—Alana Fink, Trust for Public Land |
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In communities across the country, schools are struggling to make ends meet, often with crumbling buildings, deficient programming, and empty schoolyards. Our work is changing that reality.
“When you create an environment where [students] can fall down on the turf and bounce back, it makes you feel like somebody has your back. It changes your life. To a large degree, the new schoolyard changed a lot of lives."
—Darleen Gearhart, former principal of Sussex Avenue School in Newark, New Jersey |
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Back to school often means back to desks—but not for schools with nearby open space. The creation of Wolcott Community Forest will add 307 acres of new public land directly adjacent to Wolcott Elementary School, where teachers can guide students in outdoor education. |
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American public schools own a combined 2 million acres of land. While some schools use that land for community purposes, many schoolyards remain closed to the public outside of school hours. Many more are just slabs of concrete used for playgrounds. We are working to change that. Urge Congress to provide funding for Community Schoolyards™ projects today! |
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Updates from across the Country
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Trust for Public Land and our partners in the Living Schoolyards Coalition convened to share the importance of creating more green campuses for students and communities. By the time of the 2028 Summer Olympics, we’re working to transform 28 playgrounds into vibrant and climate-resilient spaces so more Californians can connect to the benefits of nature. |
Not all Mainers have equal access to nature, but we’re working hard to fix that. North Deering Park will provide Portland residents access to 20 acres of woods, trails, and open space close to home—and students attending two nearby schools will be able to use the space as an outdoor classroom to study local wildlife, vegetation, and climate change effects that the park's trees help mitigate. |
This year, we celebrated the opening of the brand-new James R. Lowell Elementary Schoolyard with the Philadelphia community. The school's students and residents of the Olney neighborhood excitedly explored the vibrant learning and play area they helped design. With a running track, jungle gym, and multiuse grass field, there's something for everyone! |
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Share why you're thankful for the outdoors for a chance to be featured in a future newsletter. |
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Parks are essential for healthy, equitable communities. Yet 100 million people in America don’t have a park within a 10-minute walk of home.
But almost 20 million of them do live within a 10-minute walk of a public school. If every public schoolyard was greener and open to the public—we’d already be a fifth of the way to solving the problem of outdoor access for everyone in America.
Join us as we make this a reality, one schoolyard at a time. |
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So much of what's special about TPL is the people—like you—who've made our mission possible. Working together, we all benefit, and that's why we're determined to reach even more people and more communities to keep connecting everyone to the outdoors. Learn more by visiting our new website at tpl.org. |
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