The Forest Hills Playground group wants to talk about the sandbox

A request for community feedback about a feature of Forest Hills Park:

The leadership team for Good Clean Fun is seeking community input regarding the Forest Hills Playground sandbox.

A public sandbox, when properly maintained, is a wonderful sensory experience for kids. However, ensuring that a sandbox is fun and safe for children requires an investment of time and money, including regular cleaning (raking or sifting to remove debris and contaminants), refilling, and covering at night.

When the newly redesigned Forest Hills Playground reopened in 2014, it included a cement-lined sandpit surrounded by large rocks at the northwest corner of the park, along with a sand table. Designed to enhance the Park’s forest theme, the inset sandbox surrounded by astroturf was intended to contain sand to one zone, with the large rocks providing seating for caregivers.

The sandbox in October 2014, after the playground renovation.

Unfortunately, the plan did not include care and upkeep.

The sandbox in June 2025. (Good Clean Fun photo)

Over ten years later, it has become clear that it’s time to rethink the sandbox for two reasons.

First, DC’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) no longer installs or maintains sand boxes in playgrounds. Sandpits that are uncovered at night and never cleaned can harbor bacteria and parasites as they are attractive litter boxes for wild animals such as raccoons and feral cats. Although using hand sanitizer after playing in the sandbox kills bacteria, it does not kill parasites. For those organisms, a good hand scrubbing with soap and water is necessary to prevent avoidable infections. This is not possible since there are no facilities available in the Park for hand washing.

Second, the sand is causing unintended degradation to other Park features and presents a hazard. Kids carry sand to other playground areas, so it gets stuck in the astroturf and abrades the safety surfaces throughout the Park. The sand tables and water fountains remain clogged and unusable. When empty of sand, the large rocks surrounding a cement-walled pit pose a safety risk to small children who may fall in.

What’s next? Good Clean Fun, a “friends of” the Park group and a project of Van Ness Main Street, would like your opinion on what might replace the sandbox. What other playground structures encourage pretend play? What have your kids enjoyed on other playgrounds? What alternatives can you envision? We will share ideas with DPR, and enlist your help in lobbying the city to include Forest Hills Playground improvements in their capital budget. Please email ForestHillsParkFun@gmail.com with your feedback.

Sarah Benitez, Erin Bryan, Merilyn Francis, Tracy Zorpette
GCF leadership team

Forest Hills Connection is also a program of Van Ness Main Street. We maintain our editorial independence.