HAMPTON -
It was the longest 10 minutes of their lives.
A large group of children were anxious to try out the new equipment at the Jeremy Shaw Memorial Playground on Saturday. Matthew Sherwood/Telegraph-JournalA large group of volunteers worked to create a playground behind Dr. A.T. Leatherbarrow Primary School in Hampton in a single day. Some 50 children huddled near the entrance to the new playground at Dr. A.T. Leatherbarrow Primary School on Saturday waiting for the adults to finish the speeches that were keeping them from what looked like seventh heaven.
"Can we go on the playground now?" moaned one boy about seven years old as yet another adult took to the microphone.
"Can we go NOW?" said a young girl.
Finally, with the speeches completed for the opening of the Jeremy Shaw Memorial Playground and the sun finally making an appearance, the children were asked to run through a ribbon made from linked paper handprints on the count of three.
They made it to two.
A handful of excited four- and five-year-olds on the left flank made a break for it and a swarm of others were not far behind, running for the playground that a hundred or so adult volunteers had toiled all morning to finish for this moment.
Through wind and rain and boot-sucking mud, parents, grandparents, teachers, school custodians and teaching assistants, business people and residents from the community had worked since 7:30 that morning to turn what had been a flat ground earlier in the week into a children's utopia by 2 p.m.
"It's overwhelming how much everyone in this community has stepped up to this task," said Kerry Olinskie, the chair of the committee, which five months ago started the project to replace the school's aging and unsafe playground equipment.
Not long into the project, the committee got a major boost from Let Them Be Kids, a national organization that helps communities across Canada build new playgrounds. It gave the project its Helping Hand award - the first one in New Brunswick - that matches every dollar raised in the community.
Over the last five months, a core group of volunteers worked tirelessly to raise money for the $200,000 worth of playground equipment, seek corporate sponsorship and donations of labour, equipment and supplies to make Saturday possible.
One of the largest sponsors was the Shaw family of Shaw Signs Ltd. It donated $10,000 towards the projects, spared a crew of its employees to erect the equipment and worked themselves to complete the playground.
As many members of his emotional family looked on, Chuck Shaw, whose son Jeremy was killed in an automobile accident in December 2009, helped to unveil the sign at the entrance dedicating the playground to his deceased son. Among them were Jeremy's wife and one-year-old son, William.
"Jeremy started his education here, and in a few years, William will be here too," Shaw said as his little grandson toddled over the playground's rubber ground cover as other children climbed on the climbing dome, slid down slides of all shapes and swung from swings cheering and laughing.
One of them was five-year-old Ryan Bennett, who was lined up to climb the camel humpback climber.
"I like the playground because it's fun," said the Grade 1 Leatherbarrow student.
Covered in mud, many adults who had worked all day to finish the job were emotional, some wiping tears from their eyes. The whoops and hollers were why they had turned out to volunteer their manpower.
The transformation began on Wednesday when a core group of volunteers, along with project manager Mark Smith of Belair Recreational Products Inc., began pouring the cement footings and welding the playground equipment together. As they worked, the students inside their classrooms pressed their noses to the windows and made signs cheering them on. "Keep up the good work" read one sign, while another simply said "Thank you."
Through a rainstorm on Saturday, about a hundred more added their manpower, bolting together the structures, hammering in a retaining wall, laying three flatbed trucks of rain-soaked sod and metres of landscaping fabric, and shovelling 9,300 pounds of rubber ground cover over the whole play area to complete the second largest Belair playground in Canada. Others drove heavy equipment, landscaped, prepared lunch for the volunteers and ran a daycare service for the volunteers' children.
"It's pouring rain and all these people have enthusiastically shown up and so are excited to help us," said Leatherbarrow principal Lisa Jardine. "The work ethic and the sense of community is just overwhelming."
Nancy Bennett was one parent who had laboured throughout the day to finish the project.
"It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it," she said. "It's really nice because you get a real sense of community when you do something like this, and I also think it teaches the kids that it's nice to give back."
Jen Sheils, one of the committee members, was marvelling at transformation.
"Two days ago, this was just dirt and in 48 hours we have a wonderful, safe playground for the children."
