Do you remember that feeling the first time you went down the slide at your local playground? How about when your child finally conquered all of the monkey bars on his or her own? These are some of the memories we cherish in life.

Now, try to imagine a city with more than 600,000 people and no playgrounds. No safe place for families and children to gather and have fun, grow strong, or be challenged.

Carrefour, Haiti, which is adjacent to the capital city of Port-au-Prince, is one of those places. In 2010, Carrefour was at the epicenter of the earthquake that caused mass destruction and left more than 250,000 people dead and 3 million others homeless. At that time, I was working as director of parks and recreation in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and my former mayor asked me to help secure a playground for this devastated community.

Thanks to a generous donation from Playworld Systems, I had the pleasure of joining a team of health professionals and other volunteers who delivered and built the playground within a tent city that was the temporary home for more than 7,000 injured and homeless Haitians.

When we cut the ribbon on the new playground, hundreds of children from miles around literally hugged the poles and overran the area like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I cried tears of joy while watching the children go down a slide for the first time in their lives. My tears quickly turned to laughter as even the adults were crowding the swing set to get their chance at having some fun. This one playground would serve the entire city of Carrefour. Amidst the sheer misery that exists in the daily life of these children and their families, that playground brought tremendous joy and hope to those who played there.

As a park and recreation professional, I’ve always known there is great power in play and that recreation has a profound impact on a community and on a child’s life. That’s why I’ve traveled to Haiti several times over the last two years to help build playgrounds at orphanages, schools, and new developments, as well as deliver much-needed food, supplies, and toys to the children.

Before the earthquake, there were only a handful of playgrounds in Haiti, but that’s changing thanks to groups like Kids Around the World (KIDS).

KIDS is a nonprofit organization that helps build playgrounds and deliver food to children in communities devastated by poverty and natural disasters. For the past 18 years, they have built more than 270 playgrounds in 42 different countries. This has taken KIDS into Africa, Latin America, and eastern Europe, as well as Haiti before and after the earthquake, and Thailand after the tsunami.

KIDS recycles playgrounds donated to them from park and recreation departments, schools, and other facilities for use by children in these underprivileged areas. They remove the equipment, refurbish them as necessary, and then ship them overseas to other countries where children are waiting, but they need our help. The demand for these recycled playgrounds has increased, and they need more playgrounds, funding, and volunteers.

If you are aware of a playground that is being replaced or removed from your city, please consider donating the equipment to KIDS. The organization is fully insured and will provide a liability waiver that protects you from claims from the on-site removal and future claims after the equipment has been reinstalled in another country. None of these playgrounds will be installed in the United States. Once KIDS reinstalls the equipment, they will send you a picture of local children enjoying your gift of play.

Building playgrounds in disaster-affected areas, where many of the children have never seen a playground before, has been some of the most rewarding work I’ve had the pleasure of doing in my life. Please consider volunteering or letting your old play equipment help bring joy and hope to children and families in some of the poorest cities around the globe. Thank you for your help!

If you should have any questions or have used equipment to donate, please contact Tim Clauson, KIDS director of playgrounds, at 815.229.8731 or timc@kidsaroundtheworld.com, or visit www.kidsaroundtheworld.com.

Greg A. Weitzel is Director of the Division of Parks and Recreation for the City of Idaho Falls, Idaho.