Chesterfield, Missouri Honored as a 2016 Playful City USA Community
Chesterfield, Missouri is being honored with a 2016 Playful City USA designation for the third consecutive year. Chesterfield was honored for our community's innovative ideas to create a playable place for kids, families and communities, as well as our work in elevating the importance of play.
The KaBOOM!, sponsored by the Humana Foundation, announced 257 cities and towns across the United States as 2016 Playful City USA honorees. These communities are leaders in playability – the extent to which a city makes it easy for kids to get balanced and active play – and are making play part of the solution that can move the needle on countless urban challenges.
“We are thrilled to recognize these communities that have invested their time and efforts to put kids first,” said KaBOOM! CEO James Siegal. “Balanced and active play is crucial to the well-being of kids and the communities that they thrive in. By integrating play into cities, the leaders of Playful Cities USA are working to attract and retain the thousands of families that want homes in close proximity to safe places to play.”
Chesterfield has over 488.5 acres of park land and 23 miles of biking, running and walking trails. We have many events for kids of all ages including the Kid Zone at the 4th of July Fireworks Celebration, the annual Turkey Trot 1K Kids Fun on Thanksgiving Day and a Safety Day on May 21 that offers interactive demonstrations on bike safety, stranger danger and much more. To support our Get Active campaign, we offer baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, ultimate Frisbee and football on the award-winning fields at the Chesterfield Valley Athletic Complex all year long. Our two playgrounds, located at Central Park and the Chesterfield Valley Athletic Complex, have a new rubberized surface that is cleaner and is a better playing experience for all children, eliminating trip hazards caused by mulch for children with walkers and wheel chairs and offers better year round use. The Parks, Recreation & Arts Division received a Municipal Parks Grant for $333,000 to resurface the playgrounds in 2015.
Chesterfield is a vibrant city with an exceptional blend of retail, restaurants, parks, trails and unique events located just about 25 minutes west of downtown St. Louis. Chesterfield features over 170 restaurants and hundreds of retail shops ranging from unique family owned stores to convenient big box retailers. Music and movie lovers will enjoy our free concert and movie screenings at the Amphitheater or can stop by for one of our regional events.