Play Everywhere: Philly kids are getting 16 spaces designed to spark joy

Great Learning

Play Everywhere: Philly kids are getting 16 spaces designed to spark joy

Posted: Monday, October 12, 2020
Source: WHYY

The lobby of the Nationalities Service Center, on the fourth floor of a building near the Reading Terminal Market in Center City, is a boring place to wait.

Some 5,000 people from 130 different countries — complete families — come into the agency’s office each year for classes, legal and employment assistance, health services and even for a farmer’s market. But only a mural and a few other objects in that lobby represent the rich cultures and over 30 languages they carry. Time gets wasted as the children and adults pass the minutes without much to hold their attention.

“There’s really not much there,” said Gwen Soffer, the wellness coordinator at NSC who, along with her colleagues, saw the space as a missed opportunity for a learning space — an unfunded ambition, until now.

The Nationalities Service Center is one of 16 community organizations that will over the next year transform an everyday space into a place for play thanks to an initiative created by the national nonprofit Kaboom! and funded by the William Penn Foundation.

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