A brand new playground will be set up at St. Augustine School by late May.
The project, which will include fully accessible equipment and all the favourite sorts of playground features, will be operational by the end of next month, said Kari Davidson, the school’s principal.
The original equipment, which has already been removed from the site, dated back to the 1980s and needed to be replaced, she said.
As to the new playground, fundraising has been going on for some time — Davidson said fundraising efforts were launched before the pandemic, as playground equipment is relatively costly.
“For many people, it might feel like a new project — but for the school council and myself, it feels like we’ve been working on it for a long time!
“The Friends of St. Augustine are a core group that essentially works to do projects for our school, so they started our fundraising,” she said.
“In the beginning, we had students draw pictures of things they wanted at the playground. This was also taken into consideration,” she explained.
“It will follow a natural theme in terms of colour and one of the pieces is a giant rock to climb on, too. We are trying to (emphasize) the natural landscape, so there will be some landscaped features which have already been started,” she said, adding that community enhancement funding through the province helped to cover some of the project’s cost.
“We have one hill which is a much-cherished hill to play on. And we have added another one. There will also be some picnic tables, new trees, and garden boxes to enhance both social and learning opportunities outside.
“The kids are very interested in what it will end up looking like,” said Davidson.
“We have almost 700 students and families that use the playground, and it isn’t grade-based so we allow students to play wherever they would like. The whole school has access to it as well as the community around us,” she said.
Davidson said community support has been tremendous, and local volunteers will be a big part of the actual construction of the playground, which is set for May 23-25.
“Almost 30 volunteers a day will be helping out. Part of the cost reduction was to have volunteers help to put it up,” she said.
“We are also still looking for volunteers.”
Anyone interested in lending a helping hand can call the school office at 403-704-1155.
“It’s a little surreal. When the old playground went down, I was in a bit of shock because even though I knew it was coming, it’s been so long that we’ve been (working) towards this project,” she explained.
“The only thing left are the swings which are still in good enough shape and are still at code.
“There was even a little bit of grief on the part of our older students who saw it go down and have lots of good memories there, and then we also have excitement for the new playground, and for the new and more modern landscape to play on.”
Davidson emphasized how solid the support has been for the project both within the school and across the community.
“We owe a lot to the Friends of St. Augustine, too,” she added.
“I can’t thank them enough. Everyone will see the build, but the background work also makes for a lot of time that they have put in.”
