Neighborhood improvements are on in the way in Queen Village, where new schoolyards will soon be built at the Meredith and Nebinger schools.

Since August, neighbors and parents of students at the Meredith School, located at 5th and Fitzwater Sts., have participated in a series of meetings designed to generate community input and feedback for plans for a new schoolyard they’re calling Meredith Green.

Meredith today

From another angle

In June, Meredith Home & School received a grant from the Community Design Collaborative that provided services from volunteer landscape architects, designers, contractors, and other professionals to help improve their schoolyard. The cost, estimate and final design are set to be presented to the community in February. The plan includes aspects like landscaping, vegetable gardens, a green roof, an outdoor classroom and updated equipment with the goal to green the schoolyard.

Likewise, only a few blocks away, the Nebinger School, located at 6th and Carpenter Sts., received a $4,500 Picasso Project Grant to engage sixth through eighth grade students in re-designing the school’s play yard. Checks were awarded during a ceremony hosted this month at the World Café Live.

Nebinger today

The Picasso Project was created by the Public Citizens for Children and Youth in 2002, to increase arts education opportunities for students in Philadelphia and to improve the capacity of schools to provide arts education experiences.

This initiative is right in line with local living and learning. By providing kids the opportunity to create an environment that is both cool to them and serves as both a learning and team-building experience, local pride is also instilled in the minds our next generation of architects, administrators, writers, historians, laborers and more.

We’re already the City of Murals, but could you imagine the unique emblazoned schoolyards Philly would have if this type of project could take place in other schools across the city?

–Lou Mancinelli