The Zina Linnik Park Project Receives City of Destiny Award

Congratulations to the students and staff from McCarver Elementary, University of Puget Sound, University of Washington, Hilltop community and Greater Metro Parks Foundation for their contributions to the Zina Linnik Project. 

Last month, the Tacoma City Council  recognized the Zina Linnik Project volunteers with a City of Destiny Award for their group effort which turned a time of tragedy to a moment of triumph for Tacoma.

The project began in August 2007, when students and faculty at McCarver Elementary School wanted to do something to honor their classmate Zina Linnik, who had been tragically murdered a month earlier. Their initial idea was to write a few papers and hold a memorial service for her, but when the Hilltop community began to rally around their cause, the parents and “McCarver Peacekeepers” chose to take on a far more audacious challenge —to make their neighborhood a safe place for children to play, by championing improvements for Wright Park and McCarver Park.

Landscape and Urban Studies classes from the University of Washington and the University of Puget Sound worked with the McCarver students and Metro Parks staff to create the unique park redesigns. Relying on the students’ ideas, the young designers came up with design concepts which would soon transform empty and aged landscape into two sources of great community pride.

Read more here: http://www.metroparkstacoma.org/news/?id=271

Tacoma Artists Support the Greater Metro Parks Foundation with Diverse Donations

The Greater Metro Parks Foundation is busily preparing for the upcoming Wine & Roses garden party, featuring not only delicious food and wine, and great music, but also an enticing silent auction stuffed with incredible locally created art.

We are pleased to feature the generosity and the creativity of artists such as Beautiful Angle, Sarah Gilbert (bio), Audra Laymon, Britton Sukys, Chandler O’Leary, Lisa Kinoshita, Tacoma Makes, Slide Sideways, and Meghan Mitchell, all of whom have been inspired by our parks.

Auction items also include a NW Trek behind-the-scenes keeper tour, a 1 week stay in a Sea Garden/Mayan resort in Mexico, a stay at Brown's Point Lighthouse, autographed jerseys from the Tacoma Rainiers, several enticing gift baskets, dinner and drink experiences at local restaurants, and much more.

All proceeds from Wine & Roses and the auction will support the work of the Greater Metro Parks Foundation.

Our Communities Transformed

Dear friends of the Greater Metro Parks Foundation,

What a difference a decade makes. I live on McKinley Hill.  On a sunny day McKinley Ave Playfield is swarmed with people of all shapes and sizes playing basketball, picnicking and generally having a great time. Through the hard work of volunteers and strategic partnerships McKinley Park is being reclaimed from invasive species and now hosts an off-leash dog park and restored wetlands. 

But it has not always been this way. Ten years ago, our parks in Tacoma were a sad state of affairs.  Not terrible, but not great; unused and broken down equipment, crime ridden and vacant, graffiti and shuttered bathrooms.

Now spraygrounds abound; restroom facilities are open throughout the city; new community centers are enabling better access to recreational opportunities. By investing in our parks we are transforming our community: creating safer neighborhoods, building community pride, improving our quality of life, and advancing property values.

It is not just what we are building, but it is how we are building it. The “from the ground up” strategy of the Greater Metro Parks Foundation is leveraging partnerships to transform our communities in numerous ways. 

The Zina Linnik Project brought so much more than a new sprayground to Wright Park and a new playground to McCarver Park. The Tacoma Housing Authority is getting national recognition for its program to provide housing for families of McCarver Elementary students. The University of Puget Sound and University of Washington Tacoma have an ongoing partnership with McCarver Elementary to improve education for student’s at all three institutions. McCarver Students recently held their third Play in Peace Day.

The construction crews are finished with the physical improvements made to the parks, but the partnerships continue to transform our community in wonderful and unimagined ways. In ways true to the vision statement of the Greater Metro Parks Foundation, “Our community transformed... all lives enriched... through greater parks.”

Sincerely,

Bryan Flint
Executive Director

Tacoma program uses housing to promote good parenting, self-sufficiency

When Mike and Shawna Allen first heard about the McCarver Program, the deal sounded too good to be true. The Allens were close to desperation at the time — crammed into a Tacoma homeless shelter with three small children, no money and no prospect of jobs.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/05/19/2603005/the-home-and-school-connection.html#storylink=cpy

McCarver a natural candidate for experimentation

McCarver Elementary School was an obvious choice for the Tacoma Housing Authority’s experiment. Built in 1925 and located in the heart of the Hilltop, the school serves Tacoma’s poorest population. Its approximately 400 students draw heavily on the shelters and transitional housing scattered across the hill. This year, which is typical, 96 percent of McCarver’s students qualify for federal lunch subsidies.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/05/19/2603014/mccarver-a-natural-candidate-for.html#storylink=cpy