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After a year of fundraising, volunteers rallied last weekend to assemble a new playground at St. Ambrose School in Latham.

Pupils pulled weeds and raked pebbles back into the play area. Mothers scraped old paint off fences in preparation for a new coat. Fathers laid paver bricks to define gardens. Parishioners dug holes for the new jungle gym's foundation and - using a universal laser detector - checked their alignment.

Lisa Pyskadlo-Phillips had a long list of tasks for Saturday, a sunny workday that started at 8 a.m. The goal was to finish installing the new play area in a day.

Sinking ship
"The old playground just wasn't suiting our needs," explained Ms. Pyskadlo-Phillips, president of the school's parents' association.

A wooden pirate ship had rotted and broken, giving kids splinters. Chris O'Brien, a parent of a second-grader, remarked that "the old one was really dilapidated. This is quite a step up."

Some kids will miss the ship and other features of the old playground, though. Katie Worden, a fourth-grader, fancied the former jungle gym.

"It was really fun to climb on," she told The Evangelist as she raked.

Why did she come out to volunteer? "My mom made me," she said.

Abby Boudreau, a second-grader who thought volunteering sounded like fun, said she would miss the old playground "just a little."

The students might be happy that the frame of the old swingset was preserved, disguised by a fresh coat of red paint. But even Abby's mother, Jen, whose memories of the playground date back to the early 1990s when her own brother knocked himself out on a pole, was ready to see St. Ambrose get a new play area.

Furious fundraising
So the parents and students collected money over the past academic year. They sold pies, magazines, carnations, cookie dough and candy, held raffles and fried fish.

They came up a couple thousand dollars short of the $23,000 fee charged by Miracle Playground, the building company; but they plan to make up the difference with more fundraisers.

The team effort was "really great for our little school," boasted Ms. Pyskadlo-Phillips.

On building day, Miracle Playground provided playground materials, a tractor and four workers. The parish provided about 20 workers, concrete, an excavator to hollow out earth, food and drinks.

Enthusiasm buzzed on the site.

"It's kind of like the future of the school, you know? It's the start of rebuilding and the school growing and showing that the school will be around," said James Leveskas, principal. "It's a good sign."

Some parents hailed it as another way to encourage children to play outside and get exercise. Mr. O'Brien noted that parents must use a stick-and-carrot approach to getting their kids moving. For his family, the stick is banning video games; the carrot is dreaming up fun activities.

"You need as much incentive as you can to keep kids busy outside," he said. "This has been a thriving parish all along, and this [playground] is just demonstrative of the fact that people are willing to come together and keep it that way."

(05/27/10) [[In-content Ad]]

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