Vital Grandin School’s new playground officially opened Monday and it is a swinging success.
The new $120,000 structure features several new swings, the ever-popular monkey bars, slides and — best of all, as far as the students are concerned — lots of “spinny” things.
“I like the spinny things best,” said Dylan McDonald, 7, as he hung from one arm and spun. “The spinny things are what everyone wants to go on.”
Vital Grandin playground committee chair Serena Shaw and school principal Sandy Kordyback cut the official ribbon between two monkey bars to open the structure, allowing dozens of children to run forward and get on with the playing.
The celebratory event was held in conjunction with the annual back-to-school and meet-the-teachers barbecue.
“I think we had between 200 and 300 people here for the barbecue,” said Shaw.
Shaw estimated that a total of 1,500 volunteer hours went into the planning and building of the new playground, and part of that time was spent talking to the students themselves to see what they wanted. Sure enough, spinny things were in high demand.
“The kids helped design their own playground, but we also added things like a wheelchair ramp. Children in wheelchairs can access the playground,” she said.
Wheelchair-bound youngsters could be pushed up the ramp and might then slide down, but some might even be able to scoot up the stairs to other parts of the monkey bars.
“Some kids could bum-scoot up the stairs,” Shaw said.
The old wood-and-tire park was removed after by members of the St. Albert Knights of Columbus. The old tire structure was in place for at least 30 years. It had developed some safety issues and needed to be replaced.
“This new playground is designed to be safer so that backpacks and parka strings cannot catch on the screws. It has been inspected and, in addition, it is wheelchair accessible,” said vice-principal Marina Lotoski.
The new structure even has a learning component to it.
“A map of Canada and a special sign-language display add learning tools for all the children,” Lotoski said.
The playground is likely to grow again, with fundraising in place and Phase 2 of construction scheduled for next spring.
“We hope to add more spinny things,” Shaw said.
