A local school could be the recipient of a new playground worth $100,000, if they get enough votes.
Discovery School specializes in helping students with learning disabilities - and is one of 10 finalists in BCAA's Play Here contest.
A parent on the school’s Parent Support Group, Jeanine Woodman said the playground replacement would take them a long time to fundraise for without this contest.
“The entire school population is 76, so the parents have a lot of fundraising to do if they want to fundraise for something huge like that. It would take us years and years,” Woodman said. “To find out that $100,000 is within our reach is awesome. It’s extraordinary.”
Woodman said their playground is in rough shape at the moment.
“We feel our school playground is sad, aging, rusting and unsafe for the students,” Woodman said. “The students are swinging on swings where they’re not just swinging back and forth but the top bar is bouncing…the current monkey bars have duct tape on them, holding the rusted sides together, one of their climbing apparatus, their ladder, a rope ladder it had to be re-fixed to the ground so it wouldn’t fall over again.”
Woodman said she hopes to make the playground a great space for the students.
“Just to make that one place that they have to go to as grand and as fun as it can be for these students, who often in their daily school life, they work so hard on focusing on learning,” Woodman said. “Learning is difficult for a lot of them – that’s what this school is about – so to have a great place to play is so important for a break between class.”
The contest will choose three schools to receive playgrounds based on which get the most votes on the BCAA Play Here website.