It was a less-than-12-hour transformation.
Up from a dusty, barren plot of ground at C.E. Rose Elementary popped
a bright
aqua, plum and yellow "dream playground," based in large
part upon drawings by children at the South Side school.
The
$60,000 playground was a combined effort by the Tucson Orthopaedic
Institute, the Tucson Medical Center Foundation, other community
and health-care
volunteers and the school. |
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Photos by P.K. WEIS/Tucson Citizen
Rose Elementary first-grader Mark Carrillo and Fernando Cruz, 8, enjoy their
new tetherball yesterday. On Saturday, more than 300 volunteers turned out
at Rose Elementary, 710 W. Michigan St., to plant 30 trees, assemble picnic
tables, and set up a new playground. |
The national nonprofit Kaboom!, which facilitates
the building of hundreds of safe, handicapped-accessible playgrounds
around the United States each
year, helped coordinate.
On Saturday about 300 people, including more than
100 school parents and relatives, doctors and other community members,
spent most of the daylight
hours assembling the equipment in an area Tucson Unified School District
had prepared by putting down a concrete floor and concrete edges.
Yesterday,
students got their first look - and first slide and rides - on the equipment,
which includes a triple slide, an almost carbon copy
of a drawing student Erik Villegas, 9, drew on playground "Planning
Day" in December.
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Delia Arvizu, a fourth-grade
teacher who wrote the grant for the playground, was delighted with the
result, especially how it incorporated the students' ideas. "I even
went down the slide myself," she said.
| The equipment, which also
includes a mock rock wall for climbing, monkey bars and rings,
a tetherball,
small cars to bounce in and other things to jump on, has no sharp
corners. Rubberized mats and a wood chip floor protect |
Youngsters enjoy the new playground's slide. Much of the equipment
was designed with students' sketches in mind. |
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students should
they fall or trip. It's safe for the school's kindergartners
through
fifth-graders.
"When you go down
the slide, there are no sharp corners, so it keeps us from getting
cut," said 10-year-old Flor Villareal, a fourth-grader.
Classmate Jesus Cervantes, 10, said the monkey bars are safe,
too, and lots of fun. "They're also high, so you have to
jump to get on them," he said.
Chris Castro, a 9-year-old
third-grader, said he liked the rock wall. He said he has seen
them at the swap meet, but said now he can
climb
on one every day at school. |
"Now, there's a lot more stuff to play on, said third-grader Yaritza Perez,
9, who summed up the general feeling at the site yesterday: "The
school is just better because of the playground."
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