NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Bridgestone Americas Inc. and Liberty Tire Recycling are teaming up with partners from around the city of Nashville for this year's America Recycles Day. On Nov. 15, the company, along with the non-profit playground builder Kaboom! and other local partners, cut the ribbon on a playground at Nashville's Cheatham Place.
Cheatham Place is one of the oldest affordable housing buildings in Nashville, city officials said, originally constructed by the city's Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency in 1938.
K. Stratton Kirton, Liberty's vice president of government affairs, said that the new playground is made entirely of recycled materials including recycled tires from Bridgestone.
"Nashville's Cheatham Place, home to hundreds of families, no longer had a functional space for young residents to play," Kirton said. "Bridgestone Americas, Liberty Tire Recycling, Kaboom!, the Nashville Metropolitan Development Housing Agency, the Nashville Predators Foundation, and others are coming together to create a new play space for hundreds of families using all recycled materials."
The new playground is the third collaboration between Bridgestone and Liberty to help refurbish children's play spaces, Kirton said.
Community members from Cheatham Place and Nashville at large were heavily involved throughout the process. Their playground design ideas became the basis for the space's blueprints, according to the MDHA.
"In August, kids from Cheatham Place shared drawings of their dream playspaces with project organizers," MDHA said. "These ideas were integrated into the new playground design. This project represents progress in ensuring every kid has a place to play, providing a state of the art playground for children to enjoy each year."
The Cheatham Place playground project is the latest step in Kaboom!'s 25 in 5 Initiative to End Playspace Inequity, a plan to "accelerate efforts towards achieving their mission to end playspace inequity for good across the United States." The company has partnered with cities across the U.S. to build playgrounds in municipal systems such as Atlanta; Uvalde, Texas; and Oakland, Calif.
