I read with interest the story about the organization that facilitates the donation of used playground equipment to underprivileged communities around the world ("Used play sets go where fun is in short supply," July 25). The people involved in this cause have their hearts in the right place, and certainly children all over the world deserve a safe and cheerful place to play.
Letter of the Day (July 27): Playgrounds
July 28, 2012 at 2:32AM

But it is a sad commentary on American culture when we are ripping perfectly functioning equipment out of playgrounds and using funds and fuel to ship them around the world while our own precious darlings are lavished with multimillion-dollar, "state-of-the-art" playgrounds.
Wouldn't a better solution be to keep current equipment and use those dollars to make donations for communities in Gambia and Poland to build playgrounds out of locally available materials? And by the way -- do American kids really want state-of-the-art playgrounds?
I know many kids who speak longingly of a playground they have visited -- often rural, out of the way -- that still has merry-go-rounds, seesaws and monkey bars.
CATHERINE WALKER, MINNEAPOLIS