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Central District’s ‘Stay Healthy’ street gets Hopscotch CD addition

Hopscotch CD returns

By Lena Mercer

Wear a mask and play a game. The Central Area Neighborhood District Council is bringing hopscotch back to the Central District this weekend, leveraging a neighborhood street already quieted as a safe space for neighbors to walk and get some exercise during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. For the Labor Day weekend, stretches of Central District sidewalk will be decorated with a smaller but still impressive Hopscotch CD 2020 course.

The all volunteer-backed CAND is hoping add a little joy into the world in these pandemic times. CAND president John Stewart is optimistic. “The pandemic has been hard on everyone, young and old alike, for all kinds of different reasons,” Stewart said. “We can’t fix that, but we can give folks a place to go have some fun with absolutely no strings attached.”

Normally CAND would request street closures throughout the neighborhood to ensure full enjoyment of the course. But, the pandemic closures of city offices have brought that process to a temporary halt. This year’s course will run from 12th Ave to 34th Ave along Columbia, already closed to most vehicle traffic for the “Stay Healthy Streets” initiative; which closed some 20 miles throughout Seattle for pedestrian traffic earlier this year.

Several teams of volunteers were needed to paint the course which came to be this year thanks to a handful of community donations.
Planning the event in the middle of the pandemic has been a challenge and safety of the participants is also a central concern. In the past years, there have been various events along the route. This year it’s just the course put together by Stewart and his team. “We’re encouraging folks using the course to stay distant from one another and be masked,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to try to keep everyone safe.”

Time for more street Scrabble on First Hill?

The annual was the idea of Knox Gardner, a long term friend of Stewart’s. He had heard about a similar event in Detroit and decided it could be adapted for the Seattle area. There were a few years of successful Hopscotch CD events from 2013 to 2016 before the group took a hiatus.

The summer of 2020 has been a summer of cancellations for events large and small. Many small neighborhood events like this one have been put on hold. An outdoors hopscotch course is the kind of simple idea that has survived. It might be time to whip out the stencils for some more street Scrabble soon.

The course itself is made out of a “paint” that is actually “a non-toxic mixture of flour, corn starch and food coloring and water” according to the Facebook request for volunteers. The hopscotch squares are sprayed on the ground in teams of three; two stencil holders and one sprayer, and will remain until the rainy season starts and washes it all away.

In the meantime, you can start jumping soon. The course should be ready to go starting Friday on E Columbia between 12th and 34th Ave. You can learn more on the Central Area Neighborhood District Council Facebook page.

 

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