Have you heard of crowdsourcing? Chances are, if you’re from Detroit you may have an idea as to what it’s all about. We had a little thing called the Robocop statue – it was a project started on Kickstarter, one of the largest crowdsource funding platforms on the web, that raised enough money for a large Robocop statue to be built in Detroit!
Crowdsourcing allows people to contribute an amount of money toward a cause or project that they believe in. The idea is that instead of looking for one large investor to fund a project, allow many small investors to contribute toward a common goal. It’s a pretty cool concept that’s been gaining a lot of popularity over the last couple years. Crowdsourcing has allowed musicians, artists, entrepreneurs and community activists to easily get over the challenge of funding and allow them to dedicate their time, energy and focus on the project they are working on.
Recently, I contributed to a Kickstarter project called Detroit Swings – Replacing Swings in Detroit Playgrounds. Pretty self explanatory, right? I was happy to see that the project completely exceeded their initial goal of replacing 10 swings. Over $3,000 was raised, which allowed Tom Nardone and his Detroit Mower Gang to replace 40 broken swings in Detroit playgrounds.
I received an update that Tom sent to all backers of this project and I had to share it with you. It’s amazing to see the impact that crowdsourcing, volunteering and a little elbow grease can have on a community. Thank you Tom, Detroit Mower Gang, Kickstarter and everyone else involved with this project!
Crowdsourcing in Detroit
Hi Everyone,
I’m Tom Nardone, the leader of the Mower Gang. The Mower Gang is a group of renegade landscapers who mow and care for the abandoned playgrounds of Detroit. You donated to our “Detroit Swings” project on Kickstarter and we are incredibly grateful for that.
We replace playground swings when we mow and care for parks and your funds are what allow us to do that. We raised enough money for about 40 swings and we’re about 50% through with the project. We still have some swings, chains and funds left, and there is still time left in the year. Your donations are going a long way. I just wanted to write to you to give an update and fulfill a promise.
In exchange for your donation I agreed to send you some of my favorite photos from our events. Here are some!
That’s me in the middle. I brought out my bobcat and we restored a baseball diamond. Underneath all of the weeds and junk, the diamond was still there. Sometimes you just need a little bit of horsepower. That’s kind of a mower gang theme…
This was our first swing-replacement outing. That is Stuntman Mike (a mower gang regular). Replacing swings isn’t hard. You need a ladder and a couple of tools and some muscle. Note the grass length. We were here to mow as well.
Kid swings are often missing, here we are replacing some. You don’t actually need a kid with you to replace kid swings, but often times the arrive to ask questions. Almost every time we replace swings, by the time you are replacing the last one, there are kids swinging on the others. Kids love swings.
This is my Dad (age 70) and my son (age 6). I guess the mower gang is a group for all ages?
This is a new park for us this year, O’Shea Playground. Our gang is growing, so we have expanded to tackle new places. This place has nice equipment, it just needed some lawn care.
Another new park for us, Wigle Playground, it is right in mid-town Detroit. We actually chose NOT to replace swings here though because there were too many homeless people around, one who sleeps right under the playground slide. Instead, we mowed the grass in hopes that it will encourage the homeless dudes to move out. If they do, we’ll go back and put in the swings.
This is Comstock Playfield and it received new swings of both types. We also mowed around the playground. My tractor broke here, so we didn’t finish the soccer field though.
Finally, my favorite photo.
One of the guys in the gang used to be a powertrain engineer and he worked over this tractor. Now it does wheelies. Yeah!
If you know anyone in the Detroit area that has a lawn tractor and wants to come out an have fun, point them to:
Thanks again everyone!
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Thanks for the write-up. I wanted to personally invite anyone who might want to help clean up the playgrounds of Detroit. Please join the Mower Gang. It is a fun bunch of people that really get a lot of work done in an efficient manner. If you have a lawn tractor, great! If not, don’t worry, we have tools to loan and work to do. Come on out.