New Playground in White Plains to Open for Fisher Hill Residents Sunday

In a matter of hours, the parking lot of the Rochambeau School in White Plains went from a barren uninviting concrete canvas to colorful playground complete with slides, a fire truck and a small climbing wall.

Unfortunately, many of the children who live in the city’s Fisher Hill Neighborhood will have to wait until Sunday for the equipment to be ready to take on the wear and tear that is in store for it.

About 200 volunteers from Morgan Stanley and Family Services of Westchester joined officials from KaBOOM!, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building playgrounds  gathered outside of the Rochambeau School to build a state of the art 2,600-square-foot playground. The Rochambeau School is the city school district’s alternative high school, but it also houses the Head Start and universal pre-kindergarten programs runs by Family Services.

“About two years ago, the woman serving as the director of our head start program said that we needed a playground for our children,” said Gerry Goldberg, director of volunteers and development outreach at Family Services. “So she reached out to KaBOOM!, which is based out of Washington, D.C. We applied to them and they eventually match you with a donor and in this case, they matched us with Morgan Stanley.”

Goldberg said it is important for the local youth to have the playground as resource because it helps develop a number of key of their growth, from socializing to emotional maturity.

“I think that the resources that playground brings, whether it’s a climbing wall for them to develop their coordination or learning how to climb up steps in a safe way and taking their turn to come down,” Goldberg said. “They also develop their imagination. They can go up there and pretend they’re on a ship.”

Doug Ketterer,  head of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, said the community build fulfilled one of his company’s missions of giving back to the community.

“This is a perfect example of the things that we’re doing across the nation,” Ketterer said. “We have about 700 to 800 offices across the country, but we have big office in Purchase and this is great way we can give back to the communities that we live and work in.”

Ketterer said Morgan Stanley volunteers are volunteering for another playground build in Newark, NJ today.

Kristin Karsch, the project manager from KaBOOM!, stopped by the Rochambeau School about two weeks ago to meet with students and parents before the start of the project. The purpose of the visit was to get a sense of what the local children wanted from their playground.

“We actually had the kids draw their dream playground on paper,” Karsch said.

Karsch said the playground won’t be ready for the kids to play until Sunday because the concrete still needed to be set.

Vincent Enjico, the lead mechanic for Mount Vernon-based Raymond Michael Ltd., said the build went smoothly. Raymond Michael Ltd. is the area  distributor of Playworld Systems Playgrounds, the makers of the equipment used for the build.