Rendell Park Elementary School students enjoy the newest edition to their playground during the first week of school. The equipment was bought using funds from the school’s budget as well as fundraising efforts by the Rendell Park School Community Council. Supplied Photo
Students at Rendell Park School returned from summer break to find a fun new addition to their playground.
Principal Sheldon Gallagher said the new equipment was installed in August.
“What was existing … it wasn’t big enough to suit our needs and there was lots of space left to expand so I brought Blue Imp in and they had a look. We mapped out a few ideas,” said Gallagher.
“One of my kindergarten teachers, since it is mostly for our younger kids, I had her give me some input as to what would be most developmentally appropriate for those guys and she had some input and drew up a plan.”
There were two streams of funding for the project. The school budget, and fundraising dollars from the Rendell Park School Community Council (SCC).
“There was the school budget, and I sort of just kept putting money away, for the last three years I’ve just been stashing it away … and then when I went to my SCC, they were super supportive of it. We went out and had a look at the play structure and they recognized that there was a need there too,” Gallagher explained.
“They had done some fundraising previously, and they were more than happy to donate a fairly nice chunk of money toward it. It’s in the ground and it seems like the kids are loving it.”
Gallagher said it was easy to tell that the new equipment was a hit by the reaction of the students on the first day back at school.
“The first recess there were 500 kids … Kindergarten to Grade 3 just piled onto this equipment. It was just crazy—it was like ants on an anthill. And now they’ve spread out a bit, but it is still the go-to structure just because it’s new and kind of fun,” said Gallagher.
He says the new playground is a nice addition to the neighbourhood in general, and he hopes young families can use it as well.
“It’s not just for the Rendell Park students, but it’s for our entire community because we do have lots of kids that are not Rendell families that are here after hours and so it’s a nice addition to the whole community.”
