5 years ago a group of parents came together and approached me with a common goal : A NEW PLAYSPACE. If I’m being honest, my initial reaction was too panic. A million things ran through my mind; where do we start? how do we pay for this? Where is it going? Who’s going to design and build this? What will the ministry say? …….. and the list of questions went on. BUT even with all of those questions inside my head I decided to jump in with 2 feet. We had meetings to brainstorm, we did walk abouts to figure out where the best location on the property was going to be, we talked insurance, we talked finances and somehow we banded together and decided that we would make this happen!!
We affectionately referred to this undertaking as PROJECT PLAYGROUND. With the generous support of the Stewart family, a perimeter fence was installed immediately upon deciding on the location. The following spring a group of parents joined several staff members and a school yard clean up and construction day took place. We had no funds to install a new play ground so we pooled our resources and decided to build our own playground. We had hammers, saws, drills, doors, pallets, rakes, shovels and mountains of mulch along with our blood, sweat and tears. By the end of the day we had an A frame, a hop scotch, outdoor easels, a mud kitchen and a series of path ways for the children to run and play on.
Fast forward two years……..Project Playground is still on the radar. A few new members of our school family joined this committee and it was decided that we would be raising money for outdoor musical instruments. Miss. Jennifer, Miss. Herm and Miss. Heather had attended a conference in San Diego and had seen these gorgeous pieces on display. The committee priced these and set to work figuring out how we were going to raise the funds to bring these to MCA. 2 Halloween Balls later and this small but mighty group had enough funds raised to cover the cost! Excitement was in the air once again at our little school.
Throughout this process we never gave up looking for ways to support a full playground make over! Stealing the words from Walt Disney “dreams really do come true”. In 2018 we were successful in applying for a special purpose funding grant and Project Playground was going to happen. Mother Nature fought us tooth and nail……first with snow and ice then with rain and wind BUT we prevailed. On May 21st 2019 the children were introduced to the final finished product “PROJECT PLAYGROUND”!!!
This dream was the vision of not one but of many. Together we planned, laughed, struggled, fundraised, wrote grants, hammered, drilled and dreamed………….and in the end we celebrated. I guess the old adage “good things come to those who work hard” is true!
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