Written by Jane Scupham, Principal
If you were to ask a student, “What’s your favorite subject at school?” you will probably get one of two answers; lunch or recess. The ones who say lunch will go on to tell you about their favorite hot lunch (Breakfast for Lunch) and how they love being able to talk with everyone at their table and the tables around them. The ones who say recess will tell you how much fun it is to run around outside playing with their friends. Although it seems like it has been a very l-o-n-g time since we’ve been able to go outside for recess, under all the snow sits a playground waiting for Spring to come and children to come and play.
For the Fund a Cause event at the Gala this year, we asked for donations specifically for the revitalization of our playground area. We would like to repair the existing playground safety tiles, add some additional playground equipment and install a “buddy bench.” The idea of the buddy bench was brought to me by one of our 3rd grade students, Regan Mroz. Regan visited my office and brought along a buddy, Katy Levenda, to help explain to me what a buddy bench is and why one is needed at our school. Regan had heard about the bench idea, and thought it would be a good addition to our school playground. I agreed! If you were at the Gala, you would have heard from Regan about the importance of this item and why she and Katy and other students would benefit from it. The buddy bench is a bench where students who want to play, but for whatever reason don’t have a buddy to play with, take a seat indicating to their fellow schoolmates that they need a buddy. It’s a nice way to involve everyone in the activities of the playground.
We were able to raise $10,100 at the Gala toward the playground improvements, in large part due to Regan’s lovely speech. This money, in addition to our $4000 in Box Tops money, will pay for the repairs to the tiles, some more walkie-talkies for the playground supervisors, and one buddy bench. We are approximately $7000 short of being able to install some stand-alone equipment that is suitable for 4th-8th grade students. We have big dreams of expanding the playground with another whole tiled area with a multi-level piece of climbing equipment, but that would be an additional $35,000. But recess is about big dreams, and we’ve only just begun to dream.
Thank you to everyone who helped fund the first phase of this dream and to those who would like to help make more dreams come true, donations to the playground revitalization plan can be sent to the office!
