AN award-winning idea from Comet Bay College student Rachel Jones has come to life with her Childhood Pavement Games initiative rolled out at various sites across the City of Rockingham.
The 16-year-old student’s idea won the 2017 Len Sheedy How Would You Improve Your Community Competition, which encouraged students to come up with ideas about how they would improve their community.
Rachel’s entry was the winner and was implemented across Rockingham with help from the City and local businesses.
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READ NOWGames include circular maze, calculating caterpillars, dinner time Mr Wolf, twister, snail A-Z, hopscotch (turn), hopscotch (fairies) and traditional hopscotch.
The games are painted outside the Gary Holland Community Centre, Town Square in Baldivis, Lions Park in Shoalwater and two outside Secret Harbour Shopping Centre.
City of Rockingham Mayor Barry Sammels congratulated Rachel for her award winning idea.
“Each year students from different high schools across the City come up with a variety of ideas that are then judged during the competition, before being handed over to the City for assessment,” he said.
“Rachel’s entry, which won the competition last year, was a fantastic idea and the City was thrilled to help her implement it across Rockingham.
“As a City we are fortunate to have a great number of talented young people wanting to make a positive difference in their community.”
Rachel said she was inspired to implement the initiative after playing similar games at school.
“Whenever I would be walking somewhere, I would look at the pathways and think of families and how active kids are, so I thought there could be a small activity for kids on the go,” she said.
“I used to have similar games at my primary school and loved playing on them.”
The competition and rollout of the Childhood Pavement Games was made possible with support from Bendigo Bank, Rockingham Kwinana Chamber of Commerce, Tiny Tots, Baldivis MLA Reece Whitby, Lions Rockingham, Charter Hall and Warnbro MLA Paul Papalia.