PTA raising money

to restore grounds

at elementary school

Stacey Denuski said the effort started because of some unfortunate vandalism to a long slide described as a local landmark.

Sitting on the grounds of the Kenmore Elementary School playground, the straight slide follows the slope of an embankment at the playground. Before some improvements, it hung from an old wooden frame and the top was several feet above ground level.

When the vandals struck in early 2008, the Northshore School District did a risk-management study of the entire playground and, according to Denuski, found lots of problems.

As things stood, most of the equipment didn’t meet safety standards established in 1991. Denuski said the playground is the oldest in the district, installed when the school was built more than 50 years ago.

A parent with children at the school, Denuski said district officials decided they just didn’t have the money to fix the playground.

“I suppose if I had to choose between education and a playground, I’d choose education, too,” she said.

With Denuski at the helm, about 20 parents and school PTA members joined forces to take on restoring the playground themselves.

“The first thing we did was figure out what could be saved and what had to go,” Denuski added.

With school budgets routinely tight just about everywhere, Denuski said she probably shouldn’t have been surprised to find out most playgrounds like that at Kenmore Elementary end up being PTA or community projects.

In this case, local Boy Scouts have stepped in and contributed lots of effort and muscle to help rebuild the playground. As part of an Eagle Scout project, the ground level was raised beneath that all-important slide. Another Scout project removed and fixed vandalized and rusting Dumpsters that had been sitting on part of the playground.

In the meantime, volunteers and district workers painted and restored play train and boat structures on the playground. Other metal bits and pieces had to be removed for safety reasons.

Judging from Denuski’s comments, the biggest part of the puzzle left is replacing the main play structure.

Beginning with donations from school families and friends, Denuski’s group has raised about $68,000 toward a goal of $100,000. Denuski said volunteers would love to have the new playground built up by summer, but they need to close their funding gap in order to do so.

Toward that end, the group now is selling engraved bricks to be installed near the school. Any donations are welcome, but $100 buys a brick and two lines of inscription, with 20 characters per line.