Registration for this year’s Akron Parks Challenge is open through Feb. 23. The contest asks community leaders, residents and neighborhood organizations to brainstorm renovation ideas for City of Akron neighborhood parks and pitch them for a chance to win $150,000 to see them through.
One park will be selected this year, a change from years past, when two winners each won $150,000.
In a press release announcing the challenge Jan. 27, Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said, “Quality, well-maintained neighborhood parks are crucial for safety and community vibrancy.”
The challenge urges members of the community to come together to pitch their improvements and keep their ears open to any and all voices those ideas may be coming from.
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Following the registration phase, applicants will receive an email invitation to an information session on March 4 from 6 to 7 p.m. to explain next steps and help consolidate the registrations representing the same parks. A make-up session will be held on March 6 from noon to 1 p.m.
Since the inaugural Akron Parks Challenge in 2018, the Akron Parks Collaborative, a nonprofit that works to improve area parks and helps support the challenge, has invested more than $3 million to improve more than 15 parks in Akron neighborhoods.
Previous challenge winners have improved groundskeeping, updated sports fields and installed new playground equipment. Applicants should plan to be available for a year or more to see their projects through.
Only City of Akron neighborhood parks are eligible, which means no Summit County parks or other municipalities, churches or schools will be selected.
Lessons learned from Prentiss Park, a winner in 2024
In 2024, eighth graders from Innes Community Learning Center were pivotal in winning the challenge for Prentiss Park in Kenmore.
Tina Boyes, who represents Ward 9 on Akron City Council, entered the challenge on the students’ behalf.
Her entry came after the group of students began to make their pitch for separate park improvement funds as part of Akron Public Schools’ inaugural Changemaker Challenge program, which sought to engage students in identifying and solving problems in their communities.
“The first round of this is to dream big,” Boyes said. “Throw your best idea out there. Oftentimes multiple people submit multiple ideas for the same park.”
She emphasized the importance of finding partners in the community to pool people, ideas and logistics so that by the time the second phase of the challenge rolls around, each park’s proposal is more concise and therefore more appealing.
“Why Prentiss’ application was successful is we were partnering with the school that was on-site,” Boyes said. “We were actually working with students at a grassroots level to see what they wanted to see in that park as the most frequent users of the park.”
When applying, Boyes said it is important to consider that these projects take a while to complete. Prentiss Park’s renovations — which include new stadium bleachers, a quarter-mile walking path, better lighting, a basketball court and a skate park — all have yet to be realized as the project enters its second year since winning the challenge.
“In being part of a group to help implement this. There’s also after-care,” Boyes said. “This takes time. But you know, it’s not a heavy lift to be involved in this stuff.”
The commitment and involvement in a community initiative such as park renovation is very rewarding, she said. Because Akron has an abundance of parks but fewer people to tend to them, volunteer groundskeeping is more important than ever.
“It’s kind of exciting to put heads together and see something through,” Boyes said. “We’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re leveraging what we already did well. I think that makes for a stronger application and ultimately a better end result that the community uses and appreciates.”