The Charles Houston Recreation Center on Wednesday afternoon will be abuzz with children designing their dream playground for Old Town’s Hopkins-Tancil Court area.

The Washington Capitals and mascot Slapshot, So Kids Can co-founder Elliot Segal from the Elliot in the Morning show (which airs on radio station WWDC 101.1 FM), the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority and organizers from KaBOOM! are hosting a design day enabling kids from the local neighborhood to draw their dream playgrounds.

Elements from the children's drawings will be incorporated into the final design for the new community playground to be built on Sept. 13 at S.T.A.R.S. Playground at Hopkins-Tancil. Design day on Wednesday will be the first meeting for members of the playground planning committee who will work for the next four weeks to plan and prepare for the construction of the new playground.

The playground will be the second built by KaBOOM!, the Washington Caps and So Kids Can, and is one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! is leading across the country this year.

Funds for the playground were raised through So Kids Can during the 2011-12 season. Capitals defenseman Mike Green and Elliot Segal of the Elliot in the Morning show created the So Kids Can program in 2008 to benefit youth-focused, nonprofit organizations. Last season, Caps forwards Nicklas Backstrom and Brooks Laich also joined the cause. So Kids Can has raised more than $200,000 for various youth-oriented organizations.