Trending
ELKINS -- A fundraising campaign billed as 'Project Playground' recently kicked off to help raise money for new state-of-the-art playground equipment at Beverly Elementary School.
Beverly Elementary Community in Schools site coordinator Janetta Ross is helping spearhead the campaign, which will feature a fundraising auction and meatball hoagie sale on March 9 at the Beverly Fire Hall.
"We want people to come to our auction and to enjoy hoagies that will be made by the St. Patrick's Guild of Coalton," said Ross. "A lot of local businesses have already donated some great items for the auction and we are still looking for more if anyone wants to help out."
The hoagie sale will get underway at 4:30 p.m. on March 9, while the auction will begin at 5 p.m. Hoagies can be ordered in advance at beverlyelem.memberhub.com or by calling Ross at 304-636-9162.
"The playground equipment we have now is kind of at the end of its life," said Ross. "It has served its purpose and has been used for over 25 years. We have been removing things that no longer work and the vendors who we originally got the equipment from no longer exist. We can't buy or get new replacement parts, so we are going to have to replace the entire thing."
Ross said the current playground equipment is safe for children to play on, but has run its course over the years.
"It's not that there are unsafe things on the playground," she said. "All the equipment is just getting really old and we've been having to take away pieces that no longer work."
With there being very limited places for children to play in the town of Beverly, the playground at BES serves more than just the students at the school.
"Our school playground is really the community playground, because there are no other playgrounds in Beverly," said Ross. "It is a meeting and play place for families in the area."
Ross said even though a two-year time frame has been set on the fundraising campaign, the school's Playground Committee is hoping to raise enough money to get some of the equipment ready by next school year.
"We have to make some decisions about whether we can replace part of the equipment this summer," she said. "We have to figure out how much we've raised by April so that we can order equipment that will be set up during the summer while the students are gone. So there's kind of a cut-off time in April to know what we are able to do this summer."
According to Ross, several goals were looked at when choosing the new equipment, which is estimated to cost approximately $135,000.
"Our goal is to replace the current playground equipment with newer and safer pieces," she said. "We wanted to select equipment that will improve a variation of physical skills, as well as design a place that can be used by physically or mentally impaired students in the community."