More than 100 Delta employees, SkyMiles and 12Status members, and neighbors spent six hours on November 7 transforming McMicken Heights Park in SeaTac, swapping out an aging play structure for a brand-new playspace designed by the kids who'll actually use it. The build marked Delta's 50th KABOOM! playground nationally and its seventh in the Seattle area.
The project paired Delta with the City of SeaTac to replace the park's old equipment, which sits across the street from a local elementary school, according to Delta News Hub. The new playspace, which Delta says is estimated to serve 800 children each year, now includes slides, swings, climbing features, and plenty of room to explore. None of it was designed by adults alone — the layout came straight from ideas that local children shared at a KABOOM! Design Day, and Delta and KABOOM! volunteers built the structure based directly on those drawings.
Six Hours, One Neighborhood Transformed
Beyond the play equipment itself, volunteers spent the day sprucing up the surrounding park, painting and planting new flowers around the playground area. Delta volunteers from Seattle and across the country worked alongside 12Status SkyMiles members and community partners to pull it off in a single afternoon. Seattle Seahawks legend Cliff Avril joined the crew later in the day, lending some local star power to the effort.
“Every playground starts with the community. Somewhere in this neighborhood is a child who drew their dream slide. Today, it's real. That's why Delta people keep volunteering, 50 playgrounds later,” said Allison Marques, general manager of Delta Community Engagement, per the same release.
The Woman Behind the Concrete
Not every volunteer swings a hammer — some mix cement. Tracey Baldwin, a senior manager of corporate security at Delta, has led the company's Team Cement at more than 25 builds since 2017. “If the cement's not good, then the playground's not good,” Baldwin said, according to the Delta release.
Baldwin also reflected on what keeps bringing volunteers back build after build. “People traveled from across the United States for a shared goal,” she said, adding that volunteering “restored her faith in people who want to do good things.”
A Milestone Tied to KABOOM!'s 30th Year
Delta has partnered with KABOOM! since 2013 to build playgrounds alongside communities across the country, and this particular build landed during the nonprofit's 30th anniversary. KABOOM! said its partnerships have helped transform more than 17,000 playspaces nationwide, expanding access to play for more than 12 million children, according to PR Newswire.
The SeaTac build follows a similar effort just over a year earlier, when more than 100 Delta employees and local volunteers, including the Seattle Seahawks, built Delta's 45th KABOOM! playground at Duwamish Park in Tukwila in September 2025. That project, done in partnership with the City of Tukwila's Parks and Recreation Department, was also expected to serve more than 800 community children. Local children shared ideas at a Design Day ahead of that build too, with The Highline Journal reporting that more than 100 community members and Delta volunteers, joined again by the Seahawks, turned those drawings into reality.
Delta's Broader Footprint in Seattle
The McMicken Heights build is part of a larger pattern of local giving this year. Delta and the Delta Air Lines Foundation gave more than $2.6 million to 19 Seattle nonprofit partners, and the company says its people contributed more than 568 volunteer hours around the city. Delta credits that combined community work with positively impacting more than 266,000 lives in Seattle.
Whether it's cement crews, design-day sketches, or flower beds, the SeaTac project fits the pattern Delta and KABOOM! have followed across dozens of builds: playgrounds shaped by the communities they serve, built fast, and handed over to the kids who dreamed them up.
