Free Sunscreen in City Parks ($20,000)

Committee: Facilities, Parks, and Recreation

Cost: $20,000

Location: Parks throughout the city for up to three years.

Short Description: Keep Cambridge healthy and extend play time by adding free sunscreen dispensers to city parks and playgrounds! This project will fund dispenser installation and ongoing maintenance for three years. 

Long Description: 

Given the effects of climate change, it is more important than ever to ensure that Cambridge residents have access to sunscreen when they are outdoors. Many parks, pools, and playgrounds have limited shade. Placing sunscreen dispensers in these areas would expand access to these environments and encourage people to apply (and re-apply!) sunscreen. If implemented, this project would have two main goals:

1. Encourage people to protect their skin from the sun’s damaging rays, which can help prevent anything from wrinkled skin, to sunburn, to skin cancer. According to nonprofit IMPACT Melanoma, the incidence of melanoma is rising faster than any other cancer. It is also the most common type of cancer in the US, according to the NIH.

2. Make sure that kids and other residents are able to play and enjoy the parks, playgrounds, and outdoor recreation longer and more safely. This would be a low-cost project that furthers Cambridge’s goals around open space and recreation.

The costs of the project would also cover maintaining and cleaning the sunscreen stations for three summers.

An example of a public sunscreen dispenser.