Wendy Provencher of the Central Berkshire Regional School District and Nena Kingsley, Victoria Bleier and Lori Becker, family leaders with Families First, at Pinegrove Park.
Cutting the ribbon on the new Born Learning Trail.
Suggestions on how to use the Born Learning Trail.
DALTON, Mass. — Pinegrove Park now has a Born Learning trail that provokes new ways of play for children.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was on Friday held for the trail that is part of a national campaign by United Way. Accompanying 10 stations with suggestions for interacting are sidewalk illustrations by Dee Sabean and Gary Davis that were colored in by volunteers.
The addition was originally proposed by Wendy Provencher, Central Berkshire Regional School District's family and community engagement coordinator.
"We hope that they have a lot of fun, first of all," she said.
"We've put letters and numbers so not only is it fun but it's literacy. It's early literacy. It's counting and reading the signs, imagination, looking around the world at you, which a lot of us don't do anymore because we're so engrossed in our media."
The goal is to spark fun and creative learning experiences while allowing the child to guide a parent or caregiver in play. Started in 2005, there are Born Learning trails across the United States and in a number of countries.
While traveling down the path, they will encounter signs with activities such as "Pretend to move like an animal," "Walk like a duck or jump like a frog," and "Make up silly stories or songs."
"We have about four of these trails in the Berkshires and we were excited that they wanted to integrate this with this project," Berkshire United Way's Director of Volunteer Engagement Brenda Petell said.
"It was a great way to partner and really bring the two ideas together and I just think this is one of the most interactive trails that we've seen."
Lori Becker, Victoria Bleier and Nena Kingsley have done playgroups with Provencher through the school district and were among the volunteers who completed the project.
"She had us to training as family leaders with Families First and they asked us to do a community impact project and this is the project we chose," Kingsley explained.
Provencher also reported that they have been able to secure the necessary $5,000 for permanent story walk boards along the pathway. The Friends of the Dalton Library will be assisting with the purchase and preparation work needed to make the books into a story walk.
"And what is a story walk you might ask?" she said. "A story walk is a book that has been broken up in order and left out for families or children to walk along and read and normally we just have them on posts."
The Born Learning trail was made possible by a collaboration between school district, Berkshire United Way, the town of Dalton, L.P. Adams, Dalton CRA, Dalton Benefit Association and Families First.
The Department of Public Works installed the path and posts, which were provided by L.P. Adams, and Berkshire United Way provided the signs with money from the Todd Walton Memorial Fund honoring a member of the L.P. Adams family.
Berkshire United Way CEO Thomas Bernard said the organization was honored to receive the funding and use it to give back to the community.
There was also funding used from the Families First program, which is funded through the state Department of Early Education and Care.
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