The Garden City Telegram
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Scott City planning dream playground
Published 9/26/2008 in News : Area coverage
By MONICA SPRINGER
mspringer@gctelegram.com
SCOTT CITY -- By next fall, Patton Park will have a new playground.
And this is not an ordinary playground. It's a 13,000 square-foot oasis for kids that will include a grain elevator, an old-fashioned car and a tractor, along with normal playground equipment like monkey bars and swings.
The blueprints for the Scott community playground were unveiled at Scott City Elementary School Thursday night to a gymnasium packed with students and parents.
Dennis Nille, with Leather and Associates, a company based out of New York, spoke to the crowd and told them they are doing more than just building a playground.
"We're going to build a stronger community," Nille said.
Nille met with 388 students at Scott City Elementary School Thursday during the day to discuss what equipment they wanted to see on the playground.
Nille's company provides the plans for the playground, and each community gathers volunteers and donated supplies to build the project.
It's a big effort to get the volunteers together, Nille said.
"It's an amazing dream," Nille told the audience. "You'll work really hard to pursue that dream. In the end, you'll accomplish unimaginable things."
The dream playground will be completed next fall when volunteers will build it in five days. Nille will be back to oversee the project. While the parents and relatives are doing the heavy work, there will be a separate kids' area at the site of the playground for supervised play.
"It gives kids a gathering place," Nille said, adding that every child in Scott City will want to have birthday parties there.
During the unveiling, Nille showed photos of other playgrounds the company has built in North Carolina, the Oklahoma City Zoo and New York. Each playground is unique to the community it is in, he said.
Kristin Duff, a seventh-grade teacher at Scott City Middle School and the project's coordinator, came up with the idea of building a community playground after seeing one built in Washington County, where she is originally from. When she goes home to visit family, her six boys always want to visit the playground.
Duff said Scott City is the perfect size to take on the project. Plus, she said, it will add money to the community.
"When you move to a new town, you check on the community. You want to know what's there for your family," Duff said. She expects people to come to Scott City so their kids can play on the playground. Then, they'll eat in town and shop in town, Duff said.
On Thursday night, Nille asked the kids in the gym to come down and sit on the floor so he could explain the design plans. He told the students about the triple slide, the monkey bars, the garden, the tractor and the historic village. Then he asked the students if that sounded like fun.
A loud "Yes" rang through the gym.
Two of the kids who approve of the plan are Kambra Dearden, 11, and Tasha Dearden, 8. The sisters were looking at the design plans on Thursday with their parents, Thad and Jenna Dearden.
Tasha said a tunnel that takes kids from one part of the playground to another sounded like a good idea, and she suggested it to the designer.
Her sister, Kambra, is a sixth-grader. Kambra didn't get to meet with the designer during the day like her little sister did, but said she's looking forward to playing on something that elementary school students thought of.
"Even I think it's fun," Kambra said.
The estimated cost of the playground is about $300,000. Duff said a large bulk of the cost will be donated time and material, so the actual cost of the playground has not yet been determined.
Duff said the project needs more volunteers and donated items. The volunteers will handle the fundraising, volunteer coordination, child care, tools, materials, food, design and features, special needs and accessibility, and construction.
Duff, the project's coordinator, can be reached at (620) 872-7263 or kduff@usd466.com for questions or for people who would like to volunteer.
In the end, Nille said, the adult volunteers will be exhausted after working on the playground for five days. But when kids finally get to play on the playground, he said it's a special feeling.
"It's a moment I can't describe," Nille said. "You'll get goose bumps for the rest of your life."
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