It's hard to beat that childhood feeling of pure exhilaration that comes from sailing through the air on a swing. Jeffrey Waldman believes so much in that "pure sense of joy" that he embarked on a journey to hang swings all around Los Angeles, buoyed by a grant from the Awesome Foundation's LA Chapter.

When it came to awarding Waldman, a former L.A. resident who confessed via e-mail he now lives in San Francisco, the grant, the Awesome Foundation explains how the project was hatched:

After much debate and soul-searching for what The Awesome Foundation truly stands for, we picked a project that we felt truly embodied our mission - to find and sponsor unique, grassroots, homegrown ideas for making the world a more fun, happy, and dare we say, awesome place to be in.

Waldman explains how this L.A. project has swung his potential reach of spreading pure joy even further:

The easy answers to finding pure joy were from our childhood and the most common was swings. From there it was a simple endeavor but we had no idea how well it would be received or the exponential impact it would have on people’s lives and their interactions. We accidentally stumbled onto something wonderful and much greater in its return than what was to be expected on paper. Every time I see a child beg their parents to be pushed on one of my swings, I become all the more committed to the idea that this project is something I’ll never give up until it becomes a movement on a global scale. This last time was no different, and I’m entrenched in the effort to make my dream a reality

That reality is a Kickstarter campaign to fund a project to install swings in Bolivia, which follows not only the L.A. installation, but installations in The Marshall Islands, Panama, and San Francisco.

Adds Waldman on his Kickstarter page:

It’s a universal message. An appeal to celebrate the passions of our youth, to give in to simplistic urges, but mostly, to remind people of the difference a smile can make in their day and the infectious effect that smile has on those they encounter.

Have you spotted one of these swings around town? And did you give in and go for a ride?