Students of all sizes use kid-sized shovels to mulch the five new maple trees planted at Elgin Street Public School.
They’re halfway there – and they’re not stopping. Parent volunteers with the Elgin Street Public School playground committee recently put in a bid with the Aviva Community Fund competition to raise the remaining funds needed to build a fully accessible playground for the school and surrounding community.
Junya Devine, a member of the playground committee, says the school and adjacent Jack Purcell Community Centre is in need of a play structure that caters to both able-bodied children and those with disabilities. The current play structures, bedded with sand, are difficult to access by wheelchair and are 20 years out of date. Devine says the plan is to tear down the oldest of the two and install a larger structure with ramp access and a 100-per-cent-recycled rubber turf better suited to walking aids.
“Jack Purcell Community Centre offers 90 per cent of the programs for disabled children in the city of Ottawa,” says Devine. “It’s of vital importance we have an accessible play area in the downtown core.”
This year, Aviva’s website states, the insurance company is offering a total of $1 million in grants to organizations and individuals across Canada looking to create a lasting positive impact on their local community. Aviva’s Community Fund website is open until Dec. 15, and the committee has been busy urging citizens to log on and vote for the project.
To date, through grassroots initiatives, the committee has raised $61,000 towards the playground with the help of individual and corporate donors. Devine says the committee decided to take on 100 per cent of the fundraising, after the City of Ottawa failed to come through with funds to redevelop the park in 2006. To meet its April 2011 deadline, she says the committee is now looking to Aviva for the final push towards its $130,000 goal.
“We’re very optimistic,” says Devine. “We’re hoping that everyone is going to realize the positive impacts of this project on not only the children of Elgin Street Public School, but on the Jack Purcell Community Centre and the citizens of Centretown.”
Glenn Cooper, Aviva’s spokesman for the competition, says merely by entering the competition, communities can bring themselves one step further to bettering their local initiatives by providing valuable exposure to their causes.
“We found last year that there were benefits well beyond straight donations,” he says. “There was an organization that didn’t end up winning, but because of the publicity that they got in trying to garner votes, a local contractor stepped up and provided what they needed.”
One of last year’s winners, King George School in Brantford, Ont., is already feeling the benefits of its Aviva grant for a similar playground project.
Elizabeth Barnett, fundraising chair for the school’s new playground, says the outdoor classroom and soccer field have already made a huge difference in the morale of the children.
“Spirits have been lifted,” she says. “Everybody you talk to is excited this change has taken place. Even the principal has noticed a change in the attitudes of the kids.”
Barnett says getting the community to vote for the project is stressful work but the results are well worth the sacrifice.
“There’s not a greater feeling when you’ve achieved something like this,” she says. “It isn’t easy, but it’s worth it just to see those smiling faces.”