Teen wins playground equipment

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

Las Alamitos eighth-grade student Zachary Smith entered a competition with the Nickelodian television network and won a $5,000 prize for sports equipment, games and other items to be purchased for the Future Foundations Family Center in Grants. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

GRANTS — Thirteen-year-old Zachary Smith, an eighth-grader at Los Alamitos Middle School, is a laid back young man who never gets too excited about things, said his father Larry Smith.

Zach was selected by the Nickelodeon TV Network as one of a number of youth across the nation to receive a $5,000 "Let's Just Play" grant for play equipment for their school or community center in Grants, that's the Future Foundations Family Center.

Zach was one of several youth at the center who completed grant applications, which were mailed in October, said center Youth Supervisor Eric Long.

Equipment selected
"We got the letter that he was selected as one of the grant recipients, and then (he) has gone through the catalogs to pick the equipment we are going to received from Nickelodeon," Long said.

The equipment includes an obstacle course. It is in the large shape of a heart and the course shows kids how the blood flows through the heart, he said.

It includes small push carts, an area with hurdles, an area where the kids crawl through and more.

There are also a couple of large cargo nets that kids will be able to climb for fun, Long said.

There will be one- to three-feet-thick mats beneath the nets in case kids fall, so they do not get injured, he said.

A quiet Zach
Zach was quiet and a little shy when he was asked what his reaction was when he learned he was selected by Nickelodeon for the $5,000 grant.

"It was fun, it was cool," he said.

Zach said he wrote on the application that kids need to have things to do after school and things to play with to keep them busy.

Long said replacing the felt and repairing the center's pool table as well as purchasing several table board games, new basketballs, hockey equipment and footballs will round out the $5,000.

The games include Monopoly, Sorry and several Scrabble boards.

The basketballs and footballs were a natural selection since Zach is on the LAMS basketball team and really into sports, his father said.

Nickelodeon is giving away $1 million nationwide during the year, spread out between 20 kids every month.

Active play helps keep kids healthy
Nickelodeon's spokeswoman Marva Smalis said active play for kids is important to help keep them healthy.

The program is in its fourth year of offering a much needed antidote to reports of a rise in childhood obesity, concerns of reducing physical education in schools and in after-school programs and sedentary lifestyles of kids today, according to Nickelodeon background information provided to the Independent by Long.

The Nickelodeon TV network is available nationwide on cable and satellite TV channels and has two Websites: www.nick.com and www.everythingnick.com.

To contact reporter Jim Tiff, call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.