Toody Maher, founder of Pogo Park, discusses her project to help Richmond’s tough Iron Triangle neighborhood by redesigning a park and creating a safe area to foster free play for the neighborhood’s children
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1:You're listening to KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California and listener supported radio. And this is method to the madness. I show coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here on Calex that is dedicated to celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host [inaudible] and today we are lucky to have 2d Mara with us. Hi Judy. Hello Ali. Uh, and today is the founder of pogo parks coming out of Richmond, California. So to the, um, welcome to the show. Thank you. And um, the first question I always ask [00:00:30] entrepreneurs like yourself is, give me the problem statement. You know, entrepreneurs are all about solving problems. What problem are you trying to solve?
Speaker 2:Probably is all about children in play. I mean to, um, in order for children to be happy, they ha, oh, in order for children to be healthy, they have to play. And um, so I go into so many of these city parks and they're just so boring and so dull and homogenous and they all look the exact same. And when you really [00:01:00] break it down, there's very few opportunities for children to actually play in, in, in wild ways, which, which is how kids need to be playing. So kinda my first thought was just play leads to health.
Speaker 1:[inaudible] define wild way. It's an interesting term. You just use. What's, what's wild?
Speaker 2:Well, always, I mean the, I think back into my own childhood, you know, I think that if you look at every entrepreneur, anyone who's done well or has been successful creatively, [00:01:30] they've started a company, they've created a product, they've made a movie. If you look deep into their childhood, they all had rich play ex experiences. So for me, um, I mean I started a s uh, um, uh, block newspaper. I, um, created a, um, play inside our garage and sold the tickets to people in the neighborhood. Um, we, we, we built forts in dark rooms and um, [00:02:00] you know, all sorts of things. So, um, rich play experience, kind of this wild play where you can, um, build whatever comes in to your mind, set up games. I mean with no adults to come in and tell you what to do and not do. Um, yeah, that's wild play.
Speaker 1:Okay. Thanks for that definition. Um, and so that's a really, you know, um, exciting and noble cause and I believe you went to cal, right? Yeah,
Speaker 2:I did 1978 [00:02:30] to 83 and I took one year off and I lived in Switzerland, but I also actually was a part of the UC Berkeley, the volleyball team. So I was the first wave of scholarship athletes. So I like saying that I got into Berkeley, not because of my brains, but my Bronx.
Speaker 1:Was that, is that all because of the title nine stuff? Correct.
Speaker 2:So first wave of, um, scholarship athletes at cau.
Speaker 1:Wow. Okay. So, um, so you were a volleyball player [00:03:00] was, um, and then you graduated, you probably didn't graduate with the intent to go and, um, champion wild play. So give us a little bit about your background and your story and how you arrived at this kind of problem you wanted to solve. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, so I graduated in 1983 and the funniest thing is I had never first second thought what I was gonna do next. I never even thought about a career. And suddenly that I was out and I had no clue. Like, now I've got to earn money and what am I going to do? [00:03:30] So I knew somebody who owned a bond firm in La and my job was sitting in this back room with absolutely no windows with four men who smoked. And my job was to type up the transfers on bonds. If someone would buy a bond from the bank that I would actually type up the transfer slip. And, um, so, uh, they made me wear nylons. My nickname is 2d, but my given name is Susan. But I've never been called Susan my entire life. [00:04:00] They insisted they put a plaque on my desk saying Susan.
Speaker 2:So they took away my name. They may be wearing nylons. I was stuck in a room with four men smoking. And I just, um, so it turned out that I had played volleyball in Switzerland and one of my, uh, teammates cousin was the inventor of the swatch watch in Switzerland. So I just thought, wow, man, I mean, um, could I import the swatches into the United States? So you'd seen them before they'd come. And so I had seen them when they had [00:04:30] just come out in Switzerland. They hadn't come to the United States yet. So what I would do is I'd go to the bond from each day, from eight til five. I had my hour lunch, then I'd get on a bus and go to the, um, I'd go to the, uh, business library at UCLA and started to look up how to import, export, how to start your company, what is cashflow, what's a balance sheet. And then I contacted swatch and just happened to get the head guy who, uh, who asked [00:05:00] me to do a business plan. And I said, sure, I'll do one. Then I went straight to the UCLA Library to figure out what is a business plan. And I wrote it. So when I did the presentation that he'd said, you know, your, your plan is, is bold, but, um, I like your Chutzpah. And he gave me the starting capital to, to found swatch watch in the 11 western states.
Speaker 1:Wow. So, um, you're the reason when I was [00:05:30] in school, like I was in school in the 80s that everybody had swatches in California. Is that right? Yeah. So that, that was my main thing is just getting sweat and swatch was so creative and, and uh, so for our younger listeners who maybe don't know what, what was watching, it was a huge craze in that time. What was it? W I made it so cool
Speaker 2:was that, um, they took a Rolex watch, which was one of the, you know, the, the greatest, the watches in the world. And they took, they figured out how to slim the amount of part parts down by a third [00:06:00] and then have a robot make the entire thing. So they were very cheap, inexpensive wrist watches from Switzerland for $30 at retail. And then they got all these incredible artists to come and make them really a design. Um, statement and this, um, kind of formula of just inexpensive, high quality, but high design just took off and swatch became a phenomenon. Like we started with zero in sales in 1983 [00:06:30] and then, uh, and then in our region in 1986 that the watch sales were 30 million. Wow. In three years, three years since swatches became a phenomenal 30 million in $86. It's a lot more right now. So part of it, and then one of our most, uh, the most successful product at swatch was the clear swatch watch.
Speaker 2:Um, so what I did was I started another company called fun products and we made the world's first clear [00:07:00] telephone with lights. So, um, that was a fortune magazine's product of the year in 1990 and then in 1990 then I was also, um, awarded inc magazine, um, entrepreneur of the year. So kind of my thing was taking an idea and making it happen. So anything that you can think of, Oh, you know, why don't we make it clear telephone? Why don't we sell these watches all over California? Just give me idea. And I can make it happen. So that's kind of my specialty. But my goal was always [00:07:30] like, I'm going to get one day, I'm going to get so rich. And as soon as I get rich, I'm going to open a city park. Cause the city parks have always been my passion. Just like there's so much good can come from great city parks.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a watering hole for the entire community. You know, it's where everyone, the one thing that everyone loves is to just go places and sit and watch other people. You know, that's kind of like some sort of a town square and you can go and get, um, food [00:08:00] and your children can play and you, you don't know what neighbors that you're, you're gonna see. And, um, you know, just, uh, so I'd always wanted to, you know, that I've kind of like, uh, yeah, really excited to Kinda create these public spaces that are just incredibly vibrant.
Speaker 1:Speaking with a Tutee Mar, the founder of pogo parks out of Richmond, California here on method to the madness on k a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm your host deleon is, are. So that's a good transition [00:08:30] to talk about, you know, you went on this entrepreneurial adventure, I'm assuming you didn't have to wear nylons anymore and you could use your name that you wanted to use. Correct. So, um, you start out on this path, you learned that you had the power to do whatever you wanted, you built companies, sold a bunch of products, and then somehow you ended up in Richmond and you started to actually execute on your passion of, you know, helping parks be something
Speaker 2:that are the vibe part of a vibrant community. So take us through that story [00:09:00] of how did you transition from this kind of, you know, very entrepreneurial, but a more, um, private company focused, uh, type of efforts to what you're doing now? Yes. So, uh, when it turned out in 1987 that I wasn't getting rich, uh, my partner just said, look, you know, rather than waiting to get rich to do your part, just do it. You know, I never even thought about that and just doing it. So I was living in Richmond and I just started going to every single park in Richmond. [00:09:30] I, I w that Richmond has 56 parks and I went to all of them and probably the ones that I was most taken with are eight little small pocket parks that the city calls play lots and uh, two of the best play lots.
Speaker 2:It was one Salono play lot right by my house. Then I fell in love with. And the second one was elm play a lot, which is a little pocket part lose in the middle of the iron triangle neighborhood in Richmond that's known throughout the Bay of just being [00:10:00] a really challenged, violent high poverty, um, inner city neighborhood. And um, so I kind of, uh, I just, um, started doing a lot of research and I looked at all like the greatest parks around the world. Like, what made them work, what were parks used for? What are the, who are the leading thinkers on parks, what are the history of parks and basically took all the best ideas from, from, from around the world and then applied it to creating this model [00:10:30] in Richmond. I'm calling Pogo Park, you know, where'd you come up with the name? Let's suppose apart from, well we've tried, I mean I'm from the business world.
Speaker 2:Everything's branding, you know, so we got brand all things. So what is the name of this different kind of place space? You know, we wanted to have something that wasn't, if people were speaking English or Spanish or Vietnamese that everyone could kind of say it. It wasn't like a boy or a girl. So we were just, you know, again, sitting around one night and my partner Julie was thinking like play [00:11:00] opportunities, something po and then it just suddenly come up. Pogo. So it's a good little name, Pogo Park. It's pretty catchy. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys just were recognized by Google. That's actually how I found you about um, this, uh, grand bearer giving. And you got, I think you guys, we got a part of the top tag. Yes. So, um, of a thousand nonprofits that applied that they selected 10 finalists and the 10 finalists all got 250,000 and then ongoing [00:11:30] technical support from Google.
Speaker 2:That's great. So branding's working people are finding you guys and recognizing you. That's so exciting. So, um, today I wanted to kind of, I was looking on your website and there's some elements of, of parks, uh, and it's probably from your research and now your experience and how many parks have you at this point kind of touched and, oh, just like hundreds. I mean now, once he's, I mean now all I do is when I go around, I look at parks I or look at any kind [00:12:00] of spaces that could be children's play spaces, airports, hospitals. I mean, so our thing is just creating like a different kind of play space that is really focused on letting children experience different kinds of play. There's creative play, there's physical play, linguistic play, social, emotional play. Um, so how do we create these spaces that give children the most wide variety of play opportunities?
Speaker 1:Okay. So, um, [00:12:30] you're, you're always looking for the opportunities to create these play spaces. And it sounds like you've now in your research and your experience, gotten some best practices that you've published. And I'd like to kind of talk about some of these. I think there's some interesting insights here. You have. So one of them is that you use community designers and builders, which I think is really interesting because there's other models out there for doing in a neighborhood beautification. But a lot of times it's bringing a bunch of outside people in. Right. So tell me a little bit of how [00:13:00] you came to that principle of Pogo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably if I was operating in a different, in a high income neighborhood, I would have a t a a different approach like that way, like good design can be brought in from people from, from the outside. And the people who are living there have such respect for quality that they're not gonna trash it. But in inner city neighborhoods, the only way is to build from the inside out. I mean you got to engage people who live right there. So they are a part of the whole [00:13:30] transformation of the neighborhood. And the transformation of these city parks is the vehicle for the transformation of the neighborhood. Um, so that is what I realized when my little shit blew into elm play lot, uh, in the iron triangle, I had no intention of starting to work out in a neighborhood like this is just fate had it. I got on my ship and the ship started sailing and I landed in the city park and this is where I had to start my work. So it had, it demanded a different [00:14:00] kind of approach.
Speaker 1:And, um, in a place of the iron triangle, which has a lot of gangs and all, and not a lot of, um, I wouldn't think that there's a lot of, you know, um, interior designers who are experts in play are, I know who a kind of designer you have, but how did you find this community partners in this neighborhood that you were in?
Speaker 2:The community partners? Yeah. Well, so, um, we've just been so blessed with kind of who we've met. So the first thing is I just started going and knocking on doors of all the neighbors that live there and [00:14:30] started getting to know them. And it took, maybe it took about four years of just constantly showing up for people to actually start acknowledging me, talking to me because it's just so much distrust of, uh, you know, a tall, white liberal person coming in to try and change things. And everyone's seen this procession of failed experiments that everybody comes in and in time that everybody leaves. So [00:15:00] it's really been like a trial by fire to get to know all these different folks. And, um, now we've really become this kind of this real family. And um, and uh, what I just started doing is like every time that I would raise money, I'd, I'd hire somebody or keep pumping money into the community so people were getting a job and their job is we have to transform this park and your job is [00:15:30] to help us make this park work and you're going to be running it, you're going to be in charge and we're gonna.
Speaker 2:So we really have like this wonderful band of, of rookies who have learned to do everything that you could possibly think of. So, um, but one of the main things is we have learned a new language how to do the design, how to create the park on site. So rather than handing it over to a designer who comes in, give, get some input from the community [00:16:00] and then goes and does a design for the community, the community's actually generating the entire design themselves and it's like been working fantastically. Then the, we were blessed of connecting with this company called scientific art studio. They're a fabrication shop, really famous for and known for building the Mitt at the giant's Ballpark, that big million in left field. And they just finished a three point $5 million renovation of the [00:16:30] zoo at the playground, at the San Francisco Zoo. And so, um, the owners, Ron and Marin husband and wife are, are just, um, their businesses in the iron triangle.
Speaker 2:So they're eight blocks from our park. So they'd been like, our key partners is teaching and training local people how to turn their ideas into reality. So Ron and Marin are basically like our master trainers of help us build and they've got incredible confidence [00:17:00] with the c. The city of Richmond is confident in these folks as well for helping us now that we've got this wonderful partnership going is the neighbors are building the park themselves and it's all passed all the certification and the Ada and the whole thing. So, and the, the money that we're raising to redevelop this park is in large part being directed back into the community, the community. So the community is getting jobs [00:17:30] to actually do the work themselves. So as everybody walks by, everybody knows somebody who's working there. So it's been, I mean in the few years we've occupied this one park that we've not had a single incident of graffiti or tagging or anything because that's just such a respected place.
Speaker 2:The of the park again, elm play lot. Ellen play lots of trees. Yeah, this was the first kind of flagship first juggle park. This is the first pilot and it's really like right now [00:18:00] if, and just come down to eighth street in Richmond and see it. It is spectacular. So you were talking about you starting kind of getting involved with parks in the 80s but pogo park itself started relatively recently, it sounds like. Yeah, it started in that January, 1997 so it's been like a seven year journey of getting here. Okay. And I'm listening to today Mara, the founder of Poco Park here on Calex and this is method to the madness, a show dedicated [00:18:30] to the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host, Ali and his are, and some of your other design principles I think were really fascinating. You talked about dedicated staff, which I think is a big part of what you do, right?
Speaker 2:As you, you feel like the transformation can't just be the park, you have to have someone there who's helping to facilitate the freed, the play. Is that right? You're right. I mean the one innovation with Pogo Park, which isn't really an innovation, it's just what we're doing is ripping off the idea of the great ideas from, from around the world. There's many countries [00:19:00] now that have people that are trained in something called play work and they are trained. How do you use play to foster the healthy development of children? So in Norway, in Denmark for for instance, and also in England play that you can get a degree in play work. So these folks come into the playground and they seed the playground each day for high, high quality play. Like if it's a hot day, they're going to put out water or some sort of water play.
Speaker 2:If it's a, [00:19:30] um, they'll put out, um, things called loose parts of sticks and stones and natural materials and fabric and boxes of, so children can kind of can create their own environment rather than having the environment in posts like, OK, here's a slide and you've got a slide on this mean kids can, you know, turn a log into a spaceship and they can. So, uh, so what we want to do is install play workers at Allen play lot is just have people there all day long that their job is create [00:20:00] this incredible mansion, uh, imaginative, high quality place space for children that is your job and create a safe and welcoming environment for all the families. So you're, you know, you're like the vibe master make, make everyone come in and have a good vibe and give kids a place to play. And this becomes the watering hole of the entire community. And even now people are starting, they're trying to buy houses around our park because [00:20:30] they all just want their kids to run outside and go to the only safe green space in the iron triangle right now. Nice. I think that I want that job title, vibe master prejudism. Uh, okay. Here's another, a w of your design principles I found. Um, interesting cause
Speaker 1:you know, this is your kind of feels like you're building your template cause you want to do this a lot of places. So, um, you talk about, um, having basic amenities, there's must have amenities that must be there. [00:21:00] Um, comfortable places to sit, shade, drinking fountains and restrooms. So how did you arrive at that conclusion?
Speaker 2:Well, if you ask anybody in the entire world, if you go to a playground, what, what do you want? And everyone's gonna have that same thing. Like first of all, you know, you gotta have a drinking fountain. You know, if kids are playing the, you know, you gotta get some water. Second, you gotta have a bathroom cause you, you, you don't want to go to the playground with your four kids. You got one kids kind of go to the bathroom or where are you going to go? And then, um, parents, the whole thing [00:21:30] about going to the park is you want to sit in the shade, chill, talk with your, talk with the other parents. Oh, watch your children plays. You don't have to deal. You know, I mean this is the good, it's supportive of the parents. Right? And then if you ever want to make a public space come to life, bring food in and bring music, you know, so, uh, we manage and our first pogo park at Allen play a lot in Richmond of getting all those things in.
Speaker 2:And um, [00:22:00] the a snack bar was really tough cause I went to the city of Richmond, said, hey, look, the community would really like to have a snack bar and we want to cook our own food and we want to serve it. And the city said, hey, today, great idea. The only problem is we have an ordinance that prevents the sale of foods from city park. So no go. Um, so we worked with, um, a group of nonprofit attorneys in Oakland to come in and work and it took us two years to work with the city to overturn [00:22:30] the ordinance to allow the sale of food from a city park. So Pogo Park in Richmond is the pilot. So we've got food, we've got bathrooms, we've got cool places to Shay to, to sit in the shade and we've got just an outrageously great play environment.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a, that's amazing. You're actually overturning laws to get what you, what you want and that I guess, you know, we'll definitely engender the, the trust that you talked about building with the [00:23:00] community. They see you as a major partner in getting stuff done, which is really exciting. Uh, what occurs to me though is how would you, how would you be able to, this is a long project. How would you think about replicating this in other places when you know, the timeframe? I want to be shorter to actually make the impact. Sounds like it's been a years long project. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we got kind of have like the pogo park and big Taj Mahal pilot ship. And then we also have these little, the little tugboat pogo park where we can go [00:23:30] in to any kind of unclaimed forgotten land and quickly and rapidly build a children's play space and then put a shipping container in for $3,000 that doubles as an office and just put somebody there in a hat with a badge and a radio that looks official. And suddenly in two, three months you've got a playground. So, uh, that could run these high quality play experiences for children. So there's, that is kind of where I see as the [00:24:00] future of Pogo Park is we kind of have an all a cart, um, items that we, but, but um, the, we can go two ways of doing like this deep community transformation by reclaiming and doing it like big time or do these small little, um, guerrilla tactics.
Speaker 2:Like just go out there and set it up and get it occupied, which by the way, that we're already, that we've been doing. Um, so we've had that we have a couple of parks that are, are pop-up [00:24:30] parks that we've just gone into and claimed and operated that were low in cost and deepen impact. So two ways. And that's exciting. Um, and you know, because one of the keys is having a staff, uh, there, it seems like that's a big question for the organization is how do you fund that? If you're going to have be hiring people, which I think, you know, objectively outside that seems like a brilliant move because then you have a community member whose livelihood [00:25:00] is tied to the park success or they're going to be much more motivated to actually, you know, drum up the support and get things going.
Speaker 2:But how do you view that in terms of, you know, making that a long term sustainable position that you're creating? Yeah, so I mean I, I've sat and thought about this many, many a night. Uh, cause this is the, the key thing is how do you sustain the funding for the staffing? And you know, it really just looking from a business perspective, you have to have the diversified income [00:25:30] stream. So it could be quarter of the funniest going to come from the government. So it could be the city of Richmond is coming in with city staff on certain days. So that cuts part of our staffing down. It could be then it's also gonna be, um, contracts with, um, uh, you know, our earned income, um, that we've got, um, you know, and then, uh, foundation. So it, it's, it is going to be a diversified income stream through multiple [00:26:00] ways of, of raising the funding for staffing.
Speaker 2:Okay. All right. Um, and we know one more question I want to ask and kind of the, um, you know, w intrigued me was this idea of the oasis of safety. And I know that the staff is a big part of that, but um, that's, you know, really when you talk about transformation, like a place like the iron triangle from, at least from an outsider perspective, all you hear is, oh, it's so dangerous. You know, you don't want to be there. You don't want to be there in a night. Falls. [00:26:30] You're talking about an oasis of safety in the middle of that. It. Tell me a little bit about how you think about that. Well, our little Park Allen play lot has become that. I mean it is become the one place that all good guys who want to do bad things now don't go and do it there.
Speaker 2:Cause the community's really has taken it back. And the beautiful thing around this one park is there's all the houses that face it look right over the park. And everybody who's living there is totally investing in keeping [00:27:00] out it, add it up. And um, the way that it's become safe is it's busy all the time and somebody's always there. So if you're going to go do your s your bad thing, everyone knows, go do it over there. And uh, so there's been tremendous respect from the community and also a lot of people doing the bad things are relatives of people or people who are at our park know all their families. So, um, it does feel like there's some [00:27:30] sort of code to not touch it, you know. And, um, the main thing though is to take, to keep that there is to you know, is to keep investing in having this staffing cause really that you think about at work, we're spending $72 million on the police in Richmond, somebody too.
Speaker 2:And that it might cost 100,000 in staffing time to just create this oasis for literally thousands of kids. Cause the iron triangle is one of the most densely populated com has [00:28:00] more kids per square foot than any other neighborhood in Richmond. When we looked at the census would, I'll tell you the numbers are low because there's a lot of families don't report. Um, there's something like 3,500 children within a five minute walk of elm play a lot from age oh to 11. So there are thousands of kids all locked inside watching video games, just blowing their mind, drinking sugary drinks, and suddenly here's this place that they know if your school's not doing well, if you're [00:28:30] not doing wallet home, that you can always walk outside Monday through Friday, there's an adult at the park, you're going to go to an environment that's safe, where people care about you.
Speaker 2:And it's just been, a lot of kids were having problems at home cause their parents are just, you know, out. They're just coming there all day long. So it's really become, you know, it's safety comes in numbers. The more people are there occupying it and using it, the less problems that we're having. So that's really exciting. We're talking to Tutti Mar, the founder of Pogo Park [00:29:00] out of Richmond. Um, and um, today we have about 30 seconds left. Give me five years from now, if everything goes exactly the way you would want it, would pogo park, you're doing pogo park would be sending teams out to help communities build these little pop up parks all over the country that we'd be sharing all of our best prac practices at no charge to all with the underlying goal is like, let's as a country become known as a place that is creating [00:29:30] great magical places for children that would play cause with high quality play is the way to really build healthy and innovative and managed of children. Well, that's a great vision
Speaker 1:from a great entrepreneur and one of cal zone and alumni. So thanks for coming back on to campus and talking to us. Thank you. Um, and this has been method to the madness on KALX Berkeley. You can learn more about pogoPark@pogopark.org. Is that right? D correct. And you can learn more about us by going to the calyx website and searching for method to the madness. [00:30:00] Uh, thanks for joining and have a great Friday. Everybody.
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