Cynthia Gentry, Founder, Living Playgrounds
30 years ago, I left a job as a researcher at an international consulting firm to paint rainforest murals for children in circumstances of crisis or distress. I painted murals in Hughes Spalding Children’s Hospital in the inner-city of Atlanta. I also painted in a school in Sarajevo, Bosnia right after the war, at Camp Twin Lakes, a camp for children with special needs in Rutledge, GA, and many other places. Seeing the profound effect that play, nature, and beauty have on a child’s life has led to a career of designing and building nature-based play environments for children and the founding of Living Playgrounds LLC.
Beginning in 2011, I spent 12 years on the Executive Board of the International Play Association (IPAworld.org) advocating around the world for the child’s right to play- work I continue to this day. Through my work with IPA I served as Editor of PlayRights Magazine, which is distributed to our membership all over the globe. Before Living Playgrounds, I founded Play Atlanta (formerly the Atlanta Taskforce on Play), built playgrounds in Atlanta parks, and led the City of Atlanta to apply for and win Playable City USA status with KaBOOM! every single year it was awarded. Before that I created a project called Art Heals.
My devotion to play in nature and children’s rights in general and to their right to play, specifically, has become only stronger with the addition of five grandchildren to my life. I grew up in Buckhead in Atlanta and now live outside of town in the midst of an out-of-control garden with my husband, super dog, two cats, a slew of hummingbirds, and other creatures.
Our Collaborators
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Mario Cambardella - ServeScape
A landscape architect and former urban agriculture director of Atlanta, Mario built ServeScape to disrupt the garden store industry by providing a larger selection of locally-grown plants delivered to individuals, commercial, and public sites.
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Ryan Durrett
Ryan Durrett is an artist and metal fabricator working out of Atlanta, Georgia.
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Amber Jimison
Amber is an Early Learning Teacher at The Galloway School and an artist. According to Amber, “I believe every child has an inner artist, which drives my passion for sharing art and creative environments with them. My values as an artist focus on connection, community, and celebrating life and nature. I’ve worked on various projects with Living Playgrounds, as well as a mural at The Hillside Children’s Hospital, created collaboratively with the children who were patients there. My nature-based art camps allow kids to explore their creativity surrounded by the beauty of nature. I also create murals in Atlanta and faux finishes in homes and businesses, mainly in the Buckhead area, using skills taught to me by my mother, a successful artist herself.”
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Tiffini Euguene Jones, Ph.D.
A long-time professional and student in the area of sustainability, Tiffini is an Associate Professor of Environmental Science at Kennesaw State University. Her area of focus for her Ph.D. was curriculum development for Sustainability Science and STEAMS: Science, Technology, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Mathematics, and Sustainability.
A graduate of Spelman College, Tiffini is devoted to the Atlanta community and an exciting addition to the Living Playgrounds Collective. She is the justifiably proud mother of three extraordinary sons: one just graduated from Harvard (where he was Captain of the football team), one is now a Morehouse Man, and the third is forging his own path still in high school.
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Allen Peterson
Allen has been making outdoor public sculpture, commissions, and other artwork for decades. His work is in various collections, including Fulton County Public Arts, the Nature Conservancy, and The Savannah College of Art and Design.
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Brian Pound
With 25 years of experience in the playground industry, Brian has built one-of-a-kind play structures all over the Southeastern US. He's driven by the creative element and the joy that he knows play brings to kids.