Montlake Playfield Sandbox Superfund

Hi! I'm Tom Burritt. I'm not a Seattle Parks employee, or Montlake Playfield custodian. I'm just a parent of a 3 year old who loves playing in this sandbox of broken down misfit toys. Loves it. But, like you, I worry about garbage, needles, and splinters from woodchips in the sand. My nightmare scenario is seeing a needle sticking out. The sand has been getting spread onto the sidewalk from vigorous play, and I've seen many kids (including my own) take a tumble running over the loose sand. It just gets really dirty.

I don't know if someone is supposed to be taking care of this space, but not seeing evidence of that, I decided to clean it up myself. I bought a sand rake and a bunch of cubic feet of sand. Used my leaf blower to clean the sidewalks, fixed the exposed landscape fabric, raked the sand to remove ~40lbs of rocks and woodchips, and topped it up with fresh play sand. I think it needs more. This expenditure was ~$150. Want to contribute? Awesome! No? That's fine! For any money raised above that, I'll use it to continue buying more sand, get new toys, or spend it on whatever other great sandbox-related suggestions are put in the comments. If someone from the parks contacts me with a plan to better maintain the sandbox, I'll turn any remaining money over to them and shut down this gofundme. Otherwise it'll remain up indefinitely.

Our sandboxes might not be any bigger, but they can sure be better.