Peter Pan Playground in final stretch
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Supporters of a new playground in Peter Pan Park have raised $32,878, within sight of the $37,500 goal. If they can raise that amount — about 25 percent of the total amount needed — a pair of in-state grants should be able to cover the rest, organizers Mike Dorcey and Robin Nelson said.
“We got discouraged for a while, but this year has been a really good year,” Nelson said. “It seems like everything’s coming together.”
The playground project has been on the drawing board since 2004, when it was originally planned for Fremont Park by that year’s Leadership Emporia class. Designed by Leathers & Associates of Ithaca, N.Y, it was to be built by community volunteers and include such features as a castle maze, a tube telephone and a treehouse.
The project was later moved to the larger Peter Pan Park and then dropped by the class, which decided its plans were a little too ambitious. But some of the class members decided to keep it alive and kept the fund raisers going. Since then, that core group has sold $25 fence pickets, saved labels from Best Choice products and had booths at the Spring Expo, the Great American Flea Market and other events.
Within the last year, things finally caught fire. The Hopkins Foundation chipped in $3,500. The noon Rotary Club put in $2,000 more and Kiwanis gave another $1,000. The biggest push of all may have come from the St. Patrick’s Day committee, which pledged $7,500 to the effort.
Now the end is in sight. It’s so close, in fact, that the organizers are not just raising money, they’re beginning to recruit volunteers. The group said it hopes to put up the playground between Sept. 25 and Sept. 30 and needs about 700 volunteers to pull it off. So far, about 170 have committed.
Nelson and Dorcey said they need people to build, people to prepare meals and watch children, even people to organize all the other volunteers. Volunteers will work in four-hour shifts, signing up for morning, afternoon or evening on a particular day.
The project is intended to build a community as much as a playground — no small feat, Dorcey said, in a nation where so many communities are divided against themselves.
“It’s very localized, but in the end, that’s where these problems get solved — locally,” Dorcey said.
“They say it’s a civics lesson your child will never experience anywhere else,” Nelson said.
Those interested in volunteering or donating to the project can call Nelson at 342-1600. Engraved fence pickets are still for sale at $25 each and will eventually surround the completed playground.
“Almost everybody can do something,” Dorcey said.
“No, scratch that. Everybody can do something.”
wifeandmother (anonymous) says...
Kuddos to those making the effort to improve the play area at Peter Pan Park. Let's get behind this, Emporia! :-)
April 11, 2007 at 8:44 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )