SCHENECTADY — The next generation of a professional community-organizing group filed into City Hall, waving signs and shouting.

“We are ACORN, mighty, mighty ACORN,” 13 young children chanted as they marched to the mayor’s office.

Two minutes later, they had what they wanted — notice of new playground equipment at Jerry Burrell Park.

It’s the sort of success that most neighborhood associations only dream about. And it’s not the first time. In the past six months, ACORN (the Association of Communities Organizing for Reform Now) has gotten the city to fix dozens of broken streetlights in crime-ridden neighborhoods and make nearly 20 improvements to Jerry Burrell Park. Most recently, it successfully lobbied for city Assistant Police Chief Mark Chaires to be promoted to chief.

And then on Wednesday, it got a new slide and jungle gym for the children on Hamilton Hill.

How can one organization get so much done, so quickly?

Its leaders say part of their success comes from the fact that ACORN always goes public with its demands. They say they’re not content to simply rail at the city during the privilege of the floor portion of council meetings, ACORN organizes rallies and marches. They walked through the darkest parts of the city with candles to highlight the burned-out streetlights. It was nothing new when they had young children lead a march through City Hall to demand safer playground equipment.

“We’ll do whatever it takes,” said ACORN organizer Chris Franklin, who added that he was worried the march on City Hall might not provide enough pressure.

“If they won’t do it here, the mayor’s house is not out of the question,” he said.

City officials say they would give just as much attention to any neighborhood group. But residents on Hamilton Hill have been trying to get improvements to their park for years. They’ve had the support of big agencies, including the Schenectady Inner City Ministry and the YMCA. Even one of the Schenectady City Council members has complained about the condition of the park, but the city invested little money there until ACORN began lobbying for it this spring.

Franklin said ACORN tends to get attention because it brings a different group of people together for each issue. Most neighborhood groups bring the same few people to the council every time they ask for something.

“I think part of it is, we outreach to everybody in the neighborhood,” Franklin said. “We don’t draw from 10, 15, 20 people.”

Among their chosen speakers for the street lights issue were a man who’d been mugged in the dark and a woman who had to walk home after work every night.

When they demanded a safer playground, they brought parents who said they were afraid to let their children play at the park. They followed up with e-mailed photos of a deteriorating slide, along with a quote from a child who had hit his head on the exposed steel while sliding.

Organizing affected residents to speak on each issue gets a quicker response, Franklin said.

“People are very frustrated. They speak from their heart. They’re not trying to represent anyone but themselves and their kids,” Franklin said.

But it also helps that there’s a professional group behind them. Unlike most neighborhood associations, ACORN has paid, full-time community organizers. They walk the streets, surveying residents to get a list of unresolved issues, and then knock on doors to organize speakers and protesters for each problem.

“You don’t just have people speaking at a City Council meeting every so often,” Franklin said. “It’s not just a couple of hours a day when you’re done with work. It’s your job.”

The national group also has attorneys on staff — a resource that most neighborhood associations can’t afford. In fact, several recent grass-roots campaigns in Schenectady were slowed down by the need to raise money for a part-time attorney.

So far, ACORN hasn’t needed that sort of help here. The city has quickly responded to each request. In fact, ACORN members organized Wednesday’s march because they’d had to wait six weeks for their new playground equipment, which had been promised to them in three weeks.

They stressed that they were generally pleased with the city’s response.

“It’s not a matter of bashing or making anybody look bad,” said member Ayanna Hunter. “We’re just doing our part, holding you accountable for your word.”

Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen greeted the chanting crowd cheerfully.

“I have good news for you,” he told the assembled children, most of whom were under the age of 8. “The playground equipment was delivered two weeks ago. It’s been assembled and it will be put in Monday.”

The children cheered. Franklin smiled. Mission accomplished.

“This morning I wasn’t so sure,” he said. “The park’s been a long, slow campaign. But yeah, up ‘til now they were trying to get something done for years. We’ve done it in months.”