The largest expense of the rennovation will be the accessible play structure which costs $130,000
The city didn't have the money to pay for it, so a group of local parents are trying to renovate a local playground themselves.
Back in 2006, the city of Ottawa identified Jack Purcell Park as needing a face lift, but since then no work has been done to replace the park's aging wooden play structure or install an up-to-date groundcover for safety.
Two neighbourhood groups use the city-owned playground including Elgin Street Public School, and the Jack Purcell Recreation Centre, not to mention scores of neighbourhood kids.
The park wasn't about to get more hospitable when its only source of shade, a stand of Emerald Ash, was slated to be axed due to an Emerald Ash Borer infestation.
Janna Devine, who has a daughter at Elgin Street Public School in Grade 2, said in an interview that the community realized that the city wasn't going to step in to fix their playground so they got started fundraising.
She says that parents from Elgin Street school didn't want their children to be playing on a "concrete pad" once the old play structure was removed and the Ash trees were cut down.
The parents, as a grassroots collective, identified accessibility as their focus for the program. "We wanted an accessible place to play regardless of ability, a place for disabled children and for disabled parents who want to play with their able children," said Devine.
In September 2009, Devine and the other parents didn't have trouble finding help. They quickly set up a twitter page and a website and the help has started rolling in.
They difference between these Centretown parents and most parents' councils is that they weren't organizing typical small-scale elementary school fundraising projects. Instead, they decided to approach Centretown's corporate community to raise the $131,000 necessary to spruce up the park.
"Doing pizza sales and bake sales is great but obviously they would never bring us to our goal," said Devine.
To date they have raised $61,000 through donations from the Community Foundation of Ottawa which gave $15,000, capital project grants from the City of Ottawa totalling $33,000, and an undisclosed amount from Hydro Ottawa. The group has also received donations from private community members.
With the money so far the parents have bought new trees to replace the Ash, and will have a tree-planting ceremony on October 8th.
Devine says that urban parks face more challenges than suburban parks because most of those parks have been built fairly recently and paid for through development fees.
To make a donation go to http://jackpurcellparkproject.shutterfly.com/