Dear Community, This attached message was written by Michelle Zwartjes, to report from the Playground Committee on the successful construction party. Please read this to get an idea of the work involved, and also, to know who you can say "Thank You" (parents, and friends, and kids, and businesses, and community).
Our Playground Construction Party Was Wet but Successful!
The new playground looks great! It will provide our children and neighborhood families with a more challenging and diverse play structure. To create more of a community park, we are adding a picnic table, benches, and a drinking fountain.
In addition to our incredible crew of volunteers who helped to build the play structure in a single day, we have many people to thank for making our new playground a reality.
Major financial support was provided by Portland Citizens/Taxpayers, and the Portland Parks and Recreation Department, who allocated $30,000 to get the project really rolling this year. We received grants from the Autzen Foundation, Juan Young Trust, and Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc. The maple leaves that now brighten our school yard through the “Leaf A Legacy” campaign, thanks to the perseverance and vision of Maplewood parent David Dacklin, contributed to our financial goals. The Run for the Playground was a huge success! We brought in twice as much money as is usual for this event – a big thank you goes out to all of the Maplewood students, families and neighbors who supported the Run for the Playground, and to Fran Kincaid and Lisa Sloan for pulling it together.
We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Maplewood parent Pablo Nadeau and his business, Coast Pavement Services. Coast is donating much of the site preparation cost, and this was a big job. They have been hard at work at Maplewood for weeks, and had to deal with a lot of challenging and labor-intensive last-minute technical glitches. We can’t thank them enough – and they’re not through yet!
Our gloomy installation day was brightened by the support of several of our local businesses – New Seasons Market provided us with fresh hot coffee, Pizza Caboose delivered a fabulous array of outstanding pizzas for lunch, Peanut Butter and Ellie’s gave us delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, and Art4Life staff helped out with providing childcare throughout the day for our workers.
Portland Public Schools demolished our old structure for us, and will be providing bark chips for surfacing. Thanks to the Maplewood Neighborhood Association for their support, and Parr Lumber on Scholls Ferry, Miller Paint in Raleigh Hills, and Home Depot all helped out with donations toward our Leaf a Legacy maple leaves. Several businesses in Multnomah Village chipped in to help support the playground as well – thanks to Annie Bloom’s, Thinker Toys, Village Beads, Switch Shoes, Birdie’s Teas and Gifts, and Sweets, Etc.
Thank you to our fearless leader, Principal John Blanck, for serving as a terrific advocate for the playground, lending his outstanding negotiating skills, securing permits in record time, and helping in every way. John was on site early in the morning on Saturday and worked tirelessly throughout the entire muddy, wet day along with everyone else to erect the play structure.
Finally, thanks to our playground committee for making it all happen. Our chair Jim Battan spent innumerable hours in meetings and pulling all of the technical details together. All of our committee members -- David Dacklin, Annette Fagan, Betty Girsch, Jules Moorhouse, Kimmy Nadeau, Pablo Nadeau, Joan Stein, Michele Zwartjes, and more recently, Alexander Ben-Israel – have worked together to complete a multitude of tasks, including hours of meetings and planning; grant writing; cutting, painting, varnishing and hanging maple leaves; and soliciting support from local businesses.
The new structure will be ready for play in a few weeks, after final adjustments are made, the concrete cures, and inspections are finished. Enjoy!
NOTE on June 13th from John Blanck: Today, we had concrete curbs and postholes cemented in, and will work the rest of this week on the "patio" and finish work. Then, we'll have things inspected, bark chips brought in, get a final inspection, and then let kids play on it! (First day to play on it will be soon after school is out).
