The students at école Father Jan are brimming with anticipation for the day their new high-tech playground will be ready.
"They're very excited. It's going to be novel. It's going to be different. I imagine that we're going to have to set up shifts," mused principal Maurice Trottier. "When we showed them the video of the different components back in November, they were screaming and yelling. They keep asking, 'When will it be open?'"
They’ll have to exercise their patience until just after the summer break. Before the old playground comes down to make way for the new, however, the school is looking for some extra community support to help cover the cost of the saucer swings, X-wave teeter-totters and other components.
Most of the $300,000 to $400,000 in funding is already in place. As for the rest, administrators are offering the public the opportunity to purchase unique rubber bricks made from recycled tires by Eco-Flex out of Legal. The grey ($25) or terra cotta ($100) bricks will be engraved with the buyers’ names or company logos and installed either as a pathway or as a decorative wall.
Trottier said it’s a nice way to make your mark on the project.
“We’re hoping that some corporate sponsors might also want to come forward, even other people that just want to advertise.”
It’s a chance for anyone to connect with a larger legacy of community spirit. This will be the first school in St. Albert with a playground that will be completely accessible to children of all physical abilities. It will incorporate special surfaces including rubber and synthetic wood chips instead of traditional sand, which is difficult for children in wheelchairs to traverse.
Trottier defended the seemingly large expense as a sensible solution for replacing aging structures.
“A lot of the costs that we’re seeing these days in playgrounds are that the materials are much more vandal-proof.”
He even hopes that one day the pathway between Founders’ Trail just behind the school can be connected to the Red Willow Trail across Mission Avenue, right through the schoolyard.
For now the school is just focusing on getting all of the funding in place and setting a firm schedule for construction. It isn’t just the school’s 350 students that will see the benefit. The school gets a lot of other foot traffic throughout the year thanks to its convenient location near downtown and the Seven Hills area used for fireworks on New Year’s Eve. The school is also a venue for the annual Children’s Festival.
“It’s not just our children. The parents have been saying, ‘This is for the community.’ We know that there could be thousands of people that consider this to be their playground.”
The last day to buy a brick is Friday, May 22 so Trottier is asking for people to act fast.
A purchase order form is available on the school’s website at www.efj.gsacrd.ab.ca or by calling 780-458-3300. The school is located at 15 Mission Avenue.
