Fairview Elementary dedicates new playground

Fairview Elementary School students, including Alanah Hafen, 9, have something to celebrate this new school year. The new playground equipment has taken months and months of fundraising and installation by parents, students, teachers and community leaders. (Pantagraph/LORI ANN COOK)

Saturday, September 1, 2007 4:13 PM CDT

By Phyllis Coulter
pcoulter@pantagraph.com

NORMAL -- Fourth grader Joharri Weatherspoon climbed onto the new playground equipment at Fairview Elementary School for the first time Thursday morning, culminating a grassroots effort by the school that lasted three years.

Like many of the other students, Weatherspoon and his family were part of the long effort to raise money to buy the new equipment.

So it was fitting that Weatherspoon and his classmates were on hand to enjoy the fruits of the $16,000 fund-raising effort following an outdoor assembly to officially dedicate the playground.

Principal James Shaw said that many people worked diligently and hard to get the playground in place for the children of Fairview, and “that day has arrived,” Shaw said.

“We just have to thank, thank, thank,” he told the students assembled outside. They applauded loudly for the donors.

Among those he thanked were former Unit 5 school board member Rick Percy, current school board members and the Town of Normal.

Some kids who helped raise money, now junior high school students, returned to their grade school to be part of the festivities and to accept appreciation from current students.

The school needed a new playground because the old one was becoming unsafe, said Darrell Reeps, chairman of the parent-teacher organization who led the effort for the new playground.

Reeps, a parent, said the fundraising included lots of coin donations into big jars and gathering money at every single Fairview school event.

“It’s a huge feat for this school,” Reeps said, noting that Fairview serves a lower-income area of Normal.

Eight Normal Parks and Recreation workers supplied the labor to install the equipment. The department also donated and installed the groundcover.

“They enjoy putting up playgrounds,” said Garry Little, Normal Parks and Recreation director. He estimates the value of his staff’s labor at about $4,000 and the safe groundcover at about $2,000.

“You have no idea how good it feels to have this in place,” said Tony Ferrara, a parent who had a key role in fundraising.

Ferrara told the crowd that the new equipment isn’t the end of the effort to improve the playground.

During the construction, crews discovered the swings were no longer safe and they also had to be removed, leaving a bare patch of ground beside the new equipment.

He estimates that it will take another $5,000 to $10,000 to get a new swing set.

“We are still open to donations,” Ferrara said.